COUSTAUSSA
On Wednesday 19 August, the day of Antoine Déjean’s funeral, Sandrine boarded the northbound train at Couiza to return to Carcassonne. This time, Suzanne and Marianne sat in the carriage with her and there was no one to see them off. They had said their goodbyes to Liesl, Lucie and Marieta at the house. Geneviève and Eloise were in Tarascon with Inspector Pujol to pay their respects. Monsieur Baillard had left for Ax-les-Thermes.
Raoul had spent two days with her in Coustaussa, then left on Tuesday for Banyuls-sur-Mer. In his rucksack were false papers and a roll of francs bound up with an elastic band to pay the passeur for the next group of refugees and Allied soldiers to be guided through the mountains to Spain, then Portugal. Sandrine was proud of him. It was important work.
‘Soon,’ he whispered as he left. ‘I’ll come back to you as soon as I can.’
Sandrine had nodded and pretended she believed him.
The train pulled out of the station. Every jerk and jolt of the old rolling stock put more and more space between them.
‘It’s for the best,’ Marianne said, misinterpreting the expression on her face. ‘Marieta will look after them.’
Sandrine dragged her thoughts back to the present. ‘I think Lucie will be all right. Having told Max their news, all her attention is on the baby now.’
‘She’s always been like that,’ Marianne said. ‘Single-minded to a fault.’
‘She’s worried that you haven’t forgiven her for talking to Authié in the first place.’
Sandrine saw Marianne’s expression change, but she kept going.
‘We talked about it a fair bit. She panicked. She didn’t mean to do the wrong thing – she genuinely didn’t think it could hurt – and she doesn’t want it to be something that gets between you.’
‘I have forgiven her, as you put it, but I can’t forget it. We all have to make choices – how best to protect the people we love – and it is hard.’
‘She just didn’t think. And I don’t want to be the cause of bad feeling between you. You’ve been friends for so long.’
Marianne sighed. ‘Everyone compromises. There’s no black and no white, just shades of grey. Everybody’s trying to get by. Everyone tells themselves it’s all right to inform on a neighbour or give the police a tip-off, because it will go better for their family. Or thinks that what they do can’t really make a difference.’ She sighed. ‘But the small betrayals lead to bigger ones, morality is eroded. Whatever the inducements, whatever the threats, it’s simple. You do not betray your friends.’
‘Marianne, come on. She didn’t betray me. That’s too strong.’
Her sister met her gaze. ‘She traded information for a favour, so she thought,’ she said in a level voice. ‘The fact that they already had the information is neither here nor there. So, although I’m still very fond of her, I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. I will do everything I can to make sure she is all right. But I won’t forget.’
‘I didn’t realise you felt so strongly.’
‘Yes you did.’ She paused. ‘And she knows you feel you should have done something to help Max in the first place, although you couldn’t. I think she plays on that.’
‘No, she’s never said anything like that. I just feel awful, I can’t help it. I know it’s silly.’
‘It is.’ Marianne glanced at Suzanne, and, for a moment, her expression relaxed. Then the smile slipped from her face once more. ‘We have so much to do in Carcassonne. So many men are in prison, we are going to have to work twice as hard. And there’s Authié to contend with. All we can do is carry on as normal. Hope he leaves you – leaves us – alone. Be particularly careful.’
Sandrine realised how nervous she was at the thought of being back in the Bastide. Knowing Madame Fournier would be watching from next door. Accepting that she would have to be constantly on her guard.
‘So you see,’ Marianne was saying, ‘Lucie is the furthest thing from my mind.’
‘Yes, I see,’ Sandrine said, wishing she hadn’t brought it up.
She leant her head against the wooden frame of the carriage window and tilted her face to the hot August afternoon. The train hummed its lullaby song along the metal tracks parallel to the river. She wondered where Raoul would sleep tonight. She wondered how long it would be before she saw him again. Two weeks, two months? Longer?
What if the war never ended? Was that possible?
She closed her eyes, willing there to be some truth in the legend. That just as Dame Carcas had defeated the armies of Charlemagne, the ghost army might once more be summoned and drive out the new invaders from France. Only when they were free from occupation once more could she and Raoul hope to be together. She glanced at her sister and at Suzanne, and smiled.
Until such time as Monsieur Baillard found the Codex, they would do everything they could. They would play their part.
THE HAUTE VALLÉE
At first sight, everything appeared the same as always. The wide drailles were empty and it didn’t look as if anyone had passed that way for some time. All the same, Baillard was anxious. To start with, the group was larger than he liked – it was safer to take people in twos and threes over Roc Blanc – and larger than he had been expecting. Three of the men were quiet and on edge, in the usual sort of way. One English airman who spoke no French, a Dutchman and a Jewish dissident, a scholar. All bore the marks of hardship and experience on their faces. The fourth, a Frenchman, was nervous too, like the others, but he kept glancing over his shoulder and looking at his watch.
‘Just wondering how much longer to the summit,’ he said, when he noticed Baillard looking at him.
‘Some time yet.’
‘Where are we now?’
‘Do you need to know, sénher?’ Baillard said mildly.
‘No,’ he said quickly, ‘just interested.’
Keeping the water to their left, Baillard led the group on towards the pine forest that lay between Étang de Baxouillade and the plains before the Étang du Laurenti. At least in the woods they would be less exposed. He glanced behind him and saw the man was lagging behind.
‘Sénher, you must hurry,’ he said.
‘I had to stop. Something in my shoe.’
Baillard peered ahead. One of the most hard-working passeurs had been caught last week, which was why he had agreed to take the group higher up into the mountains than he usually did. He was expecting to see the Spanish guide hired to take them over the border, but there was no sign of him.
The Frenchman caught up and walked in step. Baillard’s misgivings grew. He glanced at the Dutchman and could see he was suspicious too. Baillard’s hand went to his pocket and found his pistol. He slipped the safety catch off and positioned his finger on the trigger, ready to act if need be.
‘Put your hands up.’
The shouted order came from the woods. A line of police, armed with semi-automatic rifles, were stepping out of the cover of the trees. Baillard immediately dropped to the ground.
Another shout. ‘Drop your weapons!’
The Englishman tried to run. The police opened fire. Blood and guts exploded from his chest as a hail of machine-gun fire hammered into him. The other two immediately put their hands on their heads. The informer leant close to him.
‘You’ve got no chance, old man,’ he said.
Baillard pulled the gun from his pocket and let off a shot, but it went wide. He saw the informer’s hand come up, then felt a blinding flash of pain on the side of his head. As he lost consciousness, he was aware of his hands being dragged up behind his back.
When Baillard came round, he was in the back of a police van. The Dutchman and the dissident were also there, along with several other men. Some had been roughed up, others looked as if they’d been arrested at work or in their homes.
It was hot and airless and there was a stench of blood and dirt, the sour smell of fear. The van wasn’t moving.
‘How long have we been here?’
‘Two hours, maybe three,’ the Dutchman said.
Baillard could feel dried blood on his ear and neck. The force of the blow still seemed to be reverberating in his head. He tried to move, but the handcuffs tightened on his wrists and pinched his skin.
‘What are they waiting for?’ the scholar asked.
‘For the last lot to come in. Five raids today, all tip-offs,’ the Dutchman said. ‘That’s what they were saying.’
The door of the van was suddenly thrown wide and the faces of two guards appeared in the opening. They peered through the metal grille.
‘Audric Baillard?’
No one spoke.
‘We’re looking for him, an old man. Arrested today.’
Without appearing to move, the Dutchman and the Jewish dissident both slightly shifted position in the van, so that Baillard was blocked from the policeman’s view.
‘No?’
‘This lot were arrested in the mountains,’ the younger officer said. ‘If he’s as old as they say, he’d hardly be all the way up there.’
The door was slammed shut again. For a moment, no one spoke. Then Baillard gave a long sigh of relief.
‘Gentlemen, I am in your debt,’ he said quietly.
‘It’s the least I can do to repay the compliment,’ the Dutchman said. ‘I’ve been shown nothing but kindness.’
‘And I know your work, Monsieur Baillard,’ said the dissident. ‘It is an honour to meet you, even in these circumstances. I wish I had realised earlier.’
‘Better that you did not.’
There was a bang on the side of the van. The driver fired the engine, and they moved off. Baillard closed his eyes, thinking of the trials of the past. Of a young man murdered in the dungeon of the Château Comtal many centuries ago. Of those tortured in the cloisters of Saint-Etienne and Saint-Sernin in the name of religion. Of those being sent to camps in the East. An endless cycle of persecution and death, or so it sometimes seemed. Perhaps it would never end.
If he died now, then everything he had suffered would have been in vain. The wars he had fought, the disappointments he had endured, the endless task of bearing witness to the worst of human nature for the sake of the downtrodden and the defeated. Baillard thought of those he had failed to save in the past and those he was trying to help now. He didn’t know where they were taking him, or how they knew his name, only that his life could not end here. He had to find a way to escape, to survive until the end.
The story was not over yet.
‘A la perfin,’ he murmured.