Sandrine and Marianne walked over the boulevard Omer Sarraut. Ahead of them, to their right, was the Café Continental, traditionally a leftist meeting place. On the opposite side of the road, the Café Edouard where the LVF and the Jeunes Doriotistes met. Sandrine realised she was already starting to divide the Bastide into them and us.
‘What is it?’ Marianne asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m fine.’
Sandrine looked down at the sad collection of objects, letters, notes in her hand.
‘I promised I’d deliver these,’ she said.
‘That was nice of you.’
‘You said it was all right,’ she said quickly, ‘if the guards didn’t see.’
Marianne put her hand on Sandrine’s arm. ‘I mean it, it was a good thing to do. It makes all the difference to the prisoners.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you at home later.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll walk with you,’ Marianne said. ‘Before we left, I promised Lucie I’d drop a note from her to Max, but there wasn’t time. She promised to have supper with him, but she is still feeling awful.’
They walked down into rue Georges Clemenceau, towards the building where Max and Liesl were living. When they were level with Artozouls, Sandrine stopped.
‘I’ve got something to drop off here. Won’t be a moment.’
‘All right?’ asked Marianne, when she got back.
‘No one was there,’ she said. ‘I pushed the note under the door. I hope she gets it all right.’
As they carried on, Sandrine realised she was looking into everyone’s faces – wondering what they were thinking, what sort of person they might be. There were plenty of people about in the heart of the Bastide, though she thought everyone looked nervous, scuttling to and fro, heads down, trying not to attract attention.
They arrived at Max and Liesl’s building to find the door on to the street was standing open.
‘That’s peculiar,’ Marianne said. ‘They’ve had a bit of trouble recently, so Lucie said they kept it locked.’
‘Even during the day?’
‘I thought that’s what she told me, but I might be wrong.’
Sandrine went inside first, stepping into the dark hall. She had a bad feeling, the sense that something wasn’t right. And there was a peculiar smell, like blocked drains. She took the stairs two by two, dread building in her chest, until she reached Max and Liesl’s apartment.
‘Marianne,’ she called, ‘quickly.’
The front door was kicked in, hanging off at the hinges, and bore the imprint of boots. There were splinters of wood everywhere and splashes of blood on the jamb.
Sandrine rushed into the living room, then stopped dead. She put her hand over her nose and mouth. The walls were covered with graffiti – the words JUIVE, JUDEN, JUIF daubed in black paint, crude swastikas and Nazi slogans, crossed-out Stars of David. Worse, the stench of excrement and the ammoniac smell of urine.
In the centre of the room was a heap of clothes mixed with smashed glass from the windows, the stuffing from the cushions on the sofa, which had been ripped open. On the floor, a black and white photograph of Max’s father and mother with a swastika scrawled across it. Sandrine bent down and picked it up, then turned round as Marianne came into the room behind her.
‘Oh God,’ she said.
Suddenly they heard a noise. Sandrine froze, threw a glance at Marianne, who pointed to the rear of the apartment. Sandrine nodded, then slowly went towards the sound.
She looked into the first bedroom. The window was open and the room had been turned over, but it was empty.
‘There’s no one here,’ she said.
She heard the same sound, a shuffling and the creaking of a floorboard.
‘It’s coming from here,’ she said, going quickly into a smaller second room.
‘It doesn’t look as if they came in here at all,’ said Marianne.
‘Listen,’ said Sandrine. ‘Over there. Behind the bedside table.’
The sisters pulled the piece of furniture forward, surprised as it rolled away from the wall.
‘There’s some kind of storage cupboard or something,’ Sandrine said, crouching down.
‘Is there a handle?’
‘Can’t see one,’ said Sandrine, rapping her knuckles on the white and pink paper, ‘but it sounds hollow.’
Then, more clearly this time, the same shuffling, and the sound of a bolt being shot open. Slowly the hatch door opened and Liesl crawled out.
‘Oh my God,’ Marianne said, immediately putting her arms around the girl. ‘What happened?’
Liesl emerged, blinking, into the light, then slowly stood up. Her pale face was white, strained, and her eyes were blank. She was clutching a photograph album.
‘Liesl,’ Marianne said, ‘look at me. What happened to you?’
For a moment, it seemed the girl hadn’t heard. Then, slowly, she raised her head.
‘I hid,’ she said in a stunned voice. ‘Max told me if anyone came I should hide. So I hid.’
‘Who came?’ Sandrine said. ‘Who did this?’
Liesl carried on as if she hadn’t heard. ‘There’s a compartment, you see. It was part of a corridor, but when the house was divided up, there was an awkward space left between the two apartments. Max built it. Said to hide if the police came. I bolted the door from the inside like he told me.’ She looked at Sandrine, as if noticing her for the first time. ‘Where’s Max? Why wasn’t he here? Where is he?’
Sandrine looked down at the photograph she was still holding, then turned cold. Now she realised with a sinking feeling why the man on the station platform had been familiar. The same aquiline profile, the same dark hair as his father. She had only met Max twice before and without his heavy spectacles obscuring his face, she hadn’t properly recognised him.
‘He was one of the prisoners,’ she whispered to Marianne, so that Liesl couldn’t hear. ‘I couldn’t work out if I knew him or not.’
‘What, are you certain?’ Marianne said quickly.
‘Not at the time. He was at the far end of the platform, half covered by a blanket, and there was someone in the way.’ She looked at the black and white image. ‘But, now I’m sure. Look.’ She frowned. ‘I should have said something. Told him I’d get a message to Liesl and Lucie, at the very least.’
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Marianne whispered. ‘It might not even have been him anyway. For now, let’s get Liesl out of here.’ She put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and raised her voice. ‘We’ll try to find out what’s happened to Max. But for now we’re going to take you home with us. You can’t stay here.’
Liesl stared blankly at her for a moment, but she allowed arianne to steer her out of the bedroom and into the living room. She stopped for a moment, staring at the defaced walls and the devastation, then carried on to the hall without saying a word.
Sandrine crouched down and picked up one of Liesl’s cardigans, then hung it on the back of a chair. ‘I’ll stay here and clean up.’
‘All right,’ Marianne said, dropping her voice again. ‘But be quick. It’s possible they’ll come back.’
TARASCON
The elderly couple stood in front of a table at the Café Bernadac in the Place de la Samaritaine in Tarascon.
‘Please, Achille,’ Pierre Déjean said again.
Achille Pujol looked at his beer, cloudy yellow, rough, popular in the Vicdessos valley, then put the glass down on the table. Beads of sweat gathered on his upper lip, caught in the grey hairs of his moustache. He looked every inch the retired police inspector he was. Solid, strong, steadfast and, at this precise moment, immensely worried.
‘I don’t do that sort of thing any more,’ he said.
‘Just listen to us,’ Madame Déjean said quickly, ‘that’s all we’re asking. If you still don’t think you can help, then say no.’
Pujol looked into the defeated face of his friend, then drained his glass and stood up. ‘We can’t talk here.’
Between semi-retiring from the police force and the outbreak of war, Pujol had spent a few fruitless years as a private detective. There hadn’t been much call for his services in Tarascon. Disputes tended to be sorted in the old ways and his only proper client had been the Péchiney-Sabart aluminium factory in the mouth of the valley a few miles away, keen to stop pilfering. After that, the director of the largest of the region’s plaster producers had hired him to investigate losses from his Arignac factory. He’d also had a case of shoplifting from the épicerie Rousse here in the town. The work hadn’t satisfied him and he’d resigned after five years to devote himself to his garden and his hunting.
The Déjeans followed him across the square and into a three-storey house at the end of the row. Pujol pushed open the front door and led the sombre party along a corridor, chill despite the heat of the afternoon. He let himself into a small, dark room on the ground floor with a latch key.
‘I’ve been using this as an office,’ he said, by way of apology. ‘Take a seat.’
Pierre and Célestine Déjean perched themselves on the edges of their chairs, Célestine clutching her felt hat tight in her lap.
‘We want you to look into it,’ Pierre said, placing his broad pink hands on his knees. ‘Investigate Antoine’s disappearance.’
Pujol shook his head. ‘You’re saying he’s disappeared, but you don’t know that for certain. All you do know is Antoine didn’t arrive when he said he would.’
‘He never lets us down, not if he says he’s coming.’
‘Things are different now, Célestine,’ Pujol said quietly. ‘You know that.’
‘He would have sent a message,’ she said stubbornly.
Her husband cleared his throat and spat a thread of tobacco to the floor. Then he fixed Pujol with a look that carried the long story of their friendship – in the army at Verdun as young men, as neighbours in Tarascon in times of peace, their lives lived side by side in the valleys of the Ariège.
Pujol pulled his notepad towards him. ‘When were you expecting him?’
‘This weekend just gone. He works in Carcassonne. He’s doing well.’
Pujol made a note. ‘What’s Antoine do for a living? Didn’t he want to train as a teacher? History, was it?’
‘Latin and Greek,’ Célestine said, unable to keep the pride from her voice, ‘but of course there’s no call for it these days.’
‘It’s a good job,’ Pierre said firmly. ‘He’s a representative for Artozouls, fishing tackle, hunting equipment, that kind of thing.’
Pujol nodded. ‘I’ve heard of it.’
‘He told us he’d be coming this way for work, so he’d pay a visit. It was Célestine’s birthday last Sunday.’
‘He’s a good boy,’ she murmured. ‘If he said he’d be here, he’d be here.’
Inwardly Pujol marvelled at her naïvety. Even with all the correct papers, travelling took time these days. The buses that ran on the foul-smelling gasoline often broke down, the railway timetable was unreliable. Then again, who was to say. There might be more to it.
‘How long was Antoine intending to stay?’ he asked.
‘A few days,’ Pierre replied. ‘At least, he asked me to look out his old hiking equipment. You know, boots, ropes. I assumed he was hoping to get out into the mountains. Not a proper expedition, but you know how keen he is on climbing.’
‘I do,’ Pujol said darkly.
He remembered the numerous occasions in the past when he’d had to warn Antoine and his friends off trespassing in the caves of Lombrives and Ussat. Treasure-hunting. That German boy, Otto Rahn, with his peculiar ideas. Took over the inn for a while, Pujol seemed to remember. Good friends, they were, the German boy and Antoine.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Achille,’ Pierre said, ‘but that was years ago. He did well in the war. Done well for himself since.’
‘I know,’ said Pujol.
‘We didn’t worry when he failed to arrive,’ Célestine said quietly. ‘Not at first. I know you think we don’t understand how things are, Achille, but we know well enough. But it’s been three days and still no message.’ Her hands were clawing the material of her skirt. ‘If he couldn’t come, he’d find a way to let us know.’
Pujol sighed. ‘What exactly do you want me to do?’
‘Speak to your contacts in the police,’ Pierre said. ‘In case there’s been an accident. Any reports of . . . anything.’
Achille met his old friend’s eye and realised there was something Déjean wanted to say about his son, but couldn’t with his wife listening.
‘Célestine,’ he said lightly, ‘there’s a bottle of wine in the kitchen. Would you mind fetching it? I think we could all do with something.’
She was reluctant to leave, but she did what he asked. Pujol waited until she had gone out of the room before continuing.
‘What’s going on, Pierre?’
Monsieur Déjean glanced at the door, then dropped his voice.
‘I know he was involved in something, Achille. I don’t know what. Better not to ask questions. The thing is, a week ago, a man came looking for Antoine. Foreign. Célestine doesn’t know.’
Pujol’s attention sharpened. ‘Go on.’
‘German, though his French was excellent. Said he was a friend.’
‘He didn’t leave a name?’
‘No.’
‘Or say what he wanted?’
Déjean shook his head.
‘What did he look like?’
‘Northern skin, medium height, formal. And a ring, showy.’
Pujol’s eyes narrowed. ‘SS?’
‘I don’t know. Could be.’ Pierre shrugged. ‘A neighbour was going to Carcassonne to visit her daughter, so I asked her to warn Antoine that someone had been sniffing around.’
‘Did she manage to see him?’
Pierre nodded. ‘And this is what is odd. When she told him a man had been looking for him, Antoine asked if it was an old man. If he was wearing a pale suit.’
Pujol’s hand froze in mid sentence. ‘Why did he ask that?’
‘She didn’t say, only that when she said he wasn’t, Antoine lost interest.’
‘Was he worried?’
‘Thoughtful more like, that’s the word she used.’
‘You’d told her to say the visitor was German?’
‘Yes.’
Pujol scribbled a few more words on his pad. ‘Anything else?’
‘No.’
Now that Célestine wasn’t in the room, Pierre made no attempt to hide his fear. In five minutes, he seemed to have aged fifty years. Pujol’s heart went out to him.
‘I’m worried, Achille,’ he said, his voice suddenly cracking.
‘Antoine’s a good lad.’
‘But always one to take risks. Act first, think later.’
‘It’s seen him through so far, Pierre,’ Pujol said gently, wanting to give what crumbs of comfort he could.
The truth was, Pujol didn’t like the sound of it. Antoine was the sort of young man who would be involved with the Resistance. Rightly, in Pujol’s opinion. He was brave and moral, but the type to think he was invulnerable.
‘I’ll ask around,’ he said quietly. ‘Of course I can.’
Pierre’s shoulders sagged with relief. ‘I hope it’s nothing,’ he said. ‘That we’re making a fuss about nothing, but . . .’
‘I’m not promising anything,’ Achille said. ‘But I’ll do my best.’
The door swung open and Célestine came in carrying the wine and glasses. Pujol wondered how long she’d been listening outside.
‘Have you finished talking behind my back?’ she said, though there was no complaint in her voice.
‘Celsie,’ murmured her husband.
‘Are you going to help us?’ she said, looking Pujol in the eye.
‘I’ll do what I can, Célestine,’ he said.
She held his gaze a moment longer, then nodded. ‘We’ll drink to that, then.’
After the Déjeans had left, Pujol emptied the remainder of the bottle into his glass, sat back in his chair and looked over the notes he’d written. He drew a ring around a couple of the words in the middle of the page, then ringed them again.
‘I wonder . . .’
He couldn’t be certain, especially at three steps removed, but he’d bet his last sou that when Antoine mentioned an old man in a pale suit, he’d been referring to Audric Baillard. He thought for a moment, then ripped a clean sheet of paper from his notepad and began to write a letter.