‘He’s alive. He’s come back. She said he would.’
‘Madame Fillioux?’
Courtet gave a nod, a swallow but continued to stare at his hands. ‘I … I thought the engravings genuine. I found the paintings. I really did. The wall was closed, there was no opening into that chamber but then, there it was. At first I could not believe Henri-Georges had been so stupid and arrogant as to have missed such a thing but … but … a major discovery. My moment at last.’
‘So you fell for the forgery. You believed it absolutely.’
‘If it is one, Inspector,’ interjected Eisner, ‘you will have a very hard time proving it.’
‘Please don’t be tiresome. Confine your tongue to silence lest you become an accessory to murder.’
‘I did not kill her,’ mumbled Courtet, still staring at his hands which now opened and closed and felt so useless. ‘We met at the house here and I drove her to the railway line near the cave. The leaves were turning. The truffle hunt was starting. We came across only one hunter with his sows but she did not know him. “He’s new,” she said. “Since the war, things have changed so much.”’
‘Go on, Professor,’ urged the Surete.
‘She … she was a little nervous – unsettled. Yes, yes, that’s how she was but I thought it due only to my presence. Here I was taking over the work she had tried so hard to keep for Fillioux. I … I told her she had nothing to fear from me and that due credit would be given. A bronze plaque with their names.’
One must go very carefully now. ‘Did she ask how you had come by the trunk?’
‘Yes. I told her I had received a telephone call from a dealer I frequented in Saint-Ouen. When I saw it, I realized right away what I had stumbled upon.’
A fortuitous discovery, was that it, eh? Hardly. ‘And the amulet?’ asked St-Cyr gently.
‘It’s that one and you must not handle it so carelessly. When … when I had it under my microscope and had done the tracing, I could not believe what I had found and for days I kept the secret to myself. I had to see the cave. At last, all those years of wondering what Henri-Georges had discovered were over and it was all mine.’
‘And you had no hint that he was alive?’
‘Only Madame Fillioux’s firm belief.’
‘Then why, please, did you think it necessary to keep a loaded gun at the chateau?’
Ah damn the Surete. ‘You had no right to take it.’
‘We had every right. A weapon from Dunkirk, Professor? How, please, did you come by it?’
‘Danielle, damn you. Danielle thought it best for me to have it. Suggestions in that woman’s hesitation to respond to my postcards and requests led us to believe he could well have returned and now we find he has. First she and her sous-facteur are murdered and then Jouvet. It’s too much to deny. The evidence is clear.’
‘Danielle … ah yes. So now we are getting somewhere at last. Your former student, the daughter of your former colleague, a cave painter par excellence and a stone-user of note – ah, please do not think I said stonekiller yet, Professor. Or yourself either, Herr Eisner. A forgery, a lot of money, a research grant worth – how much was it, please?’
‘250,000 marks,’ said Eisner.
‘5,000,000 francs.’
‘And a film,’ said Franz Oelmann coming to join them. ‘You put Jouvet’s body in my car, Inspector, so as to make us all believe Fillioux had really returned.’
There were two men with Oelmann. Tough-looking, grim and brutal. Still, he would have to say it and hope Hermann was near. ‘But Fillioux hasn’t returned, has he, Herr Oelmann? Henri-Georges has been dead for years. Madame Fillioux refused to believe it. Very early on in this Occupation, postcards began arriving from the parents but all they ever mentioned was food and money, then Danielle added her pleas and soon was writing to tell that poor woman the trunk had not only been sold, Professor, but to yourself.’
‘Danielle …?’ stammered Courtet, caught unawares and sickened by the news.
‘Yes! She warned Madame Fillioux it was you who had the trunk.’
Ah no … ‘But … but that’s not possible! Danielle said she would keep in the background. All I wanted her to do was to convince the parents to put the trunk up for sale. 5,000 francs – I paid her that much, and another 2,000 to the shop.’
St-Cyr let out a sigh. ‘And she took you and everyone else for a ride. An amulet like this, a cave whose paintings surpassed even those of Lascaux. Swastikas at the dawn of prehistory and then, as her crowning touch, the return of the dead husband.’
‘Danielle,’ swore Oelmann. ‘Get Danielle.’
‘Ah no, monsieur, a moment please. Jouvet’s Luger, it is loaded.’
The crowd vanished. People dived for cover. Chairs fell, tables were tipped on to their sides. There was a mad rush for the door, the sound of breaking glass, a scream, a plea to get out.
Then silence. Ah nom de Dieu, de Dieu, two Schmeissers were facing him in addition to the Radom pistol Herr Oelmann had reacquired. ‘All right, you win. The cave isn’t a forgery.’
At a toss of Oelmann’s head, St-Cyr put the Luger carefully down on the table and raised his hands. Hermann had not come to the rescue. Hermann must be busy elsewhere.
Moving diagonally away through the crowd, Kohler tried to keep out from under the arc lights. The German director was shouting in deutsch through a megaphone to Marina von Strade up on the balcony. A little more of her cleavage, more of a winsome smile. ‘You’re an ignorant peasant wench, Marina. Christ, you’re going to want to seduce him, eh? Tease the bastard!’ Her prehistorian.
Kohler ran. Clinging to the periphery of the set, he made it to the first camera, tripped over a cable, pulled the bloody thing down, was up and away to shouts and curses. Got to keep going, he told himself. Got to get Louis out of their clutches. First have to get Juliette and Danielle away before it’s too late … too late.…
The street was nowhere dark enough, the lorries and vans looked as if just waiting for him. He could hear the Sonderkommando rushing through the crowd behind him.
When he got to the dressing room, it was empty. The handcuffs had been shot free. Ah merde.
He ran. He reached the river and went up it until all he heard was the sound of the current. ‘Juliette …?’ he ventured but she did not answer. Where … where the hell had the two of them gone?
They were standing calf-deep in the river, in darkness beneath some overhanging branches. As Juliette pressed the muzzle of the gun into Danielle’s back, figures darted along the bank, while over the lower village, with its cluster of Renaissance houses, the capsule dome of light formed a bubble under the sky.
Muffled, urgent voices were now heard. Lights … would they use their torches? she wondered.
‘He’ll kill you, madame,’ breathed Danielle. ‘Our Franz won’t waste any time on you now.’
‘Don’t you dare try anything! I’m warning. I’ll shoot’
Surrounded by water, they waited until at last she said more calmly, ‘We’ll go upriver to the farm. Maybe then you will find the courage to tell me what happened. You were there when Monsieur Auger was killed, mademoiselle. Shards from one of those little tubes you love so much were found in the sand. Did you break it when you realized there wasn’t enough?’
Ah damn her. ‘I did not kill him. I only heard him die.’
The gun was jabbed into the small of her back, ‘I don’t believe you. Now move! Walk out farther. Feel your way with your feet. Take off your shoes.’