In an instant, he saw the whole plan laid out from the first act to the last. The full scale of it. This wasn’t just about Laval infiltrating their group; it was part of a coordinated attempt to use the demonstration to turn the people of Carcassonne against the partisans. To paint the résistants as dangerous, careless of the lives of ordinary citizens. To portray them as the enemies of peace.
‘Get down,’ Raoul shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Everyone, get down!’
His words were lost in the explosion.
For a second after the blast, nothing seemed to happen. Time stood still. Fistfuls of masonry, of stone and ballast seemed to hang suspended in the air for a moment, under the malevolent watch of the gargoyles, before suddenly crashing back to earth. And all around, copies of the leaflets Raoul was holding were fluttering like leaves blown by the wind. It seemed Laval had packed their tracts round the bomb to implicate them further.
Then, screaming and people shouting for help.
Raoul ran towards an old man lying dazed on the ground, still holding the placard he’d been carrying. A trickle of blood ran down his temple, but he was shocked rather than seriously hurt.
‘Vivre libre ou mourir,’ Raoul read, prising the veteran’s thin fingers from the wooden handle. ‘Are you all right, monsieur?’
‘Never better, son,’ he said. ‘Shows we’ve got ’em on the run, è?’
A woman came to help, so Raoul moved on to the next. A teenage boy was propped against the wall, clutching his arm. He looked very grey, very pale. Raoul took off his jacket and swung it over the boy’s shoulders. As he did, the few remaining tracts fell out of the pocket.
‘Look!’ a woman with a child was shouting. ‘That’s him. That’s one of them, look!’
It was a split second before Raoul realised she was pointing at him, at the leaflets lying on the steps beside him. The same black and white images as were drifting all over the garden.
He heard sirens, distant but coming closer.
‘No,’ he began to say. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Laval step out of the doorway and slip away into the crowd. He pointed. ‘No, the man you want is—’
‘He did it,’ the woman shrieked. ‘There!’
Now police were converging on the patch of garden from all angles and the woman was still shouting.
Raoul didn’t like the pallor of the boy, but he knew there was nothing he could do.
‘I’ll try to get someone to help you,’ he promised, then he ran into the cover of the streets beyond the square.
Chapter 27
‘What was that?’ said Sandrine, turning back in the direction of the noise. ‘Firecrackers?’
A woman’s scream drifted across the rooftops. Everyone around them paused, then carried on with what they were doing. Sandrine saw the owner of the Pharmacie Sarcos hesitate, before reaching up with his long wooden pole and hook to pull down the yellow and white awning as if he’d heard nothing. The mechanism squeaked as it unfurled.
‘Why’s no one taking any notice?’
Suzanne tapped the side of her head. ‘See nothing, do nothing, that’s how it is.’
‘We should go back,’ Sandrine said.
Another shout from the direction of the boulevard Barbès.
‘We’ve got to help,’ she said.
Before Marianne could stop her, Sandrine had started running. She raced back along the rue du Chartran, going against the tide. Marianne and Suzanne were now following behind.
The crowd was streaming away from the boulevard Barbès and into the safety of the Bastide. Men walking fast, women clutching the hands of frightened, crying children. In the distance, the wail of an ambulance.
Sandrine shot out her hand. ‘What’s going on? We heard an explosion and—’
‘A bomb,’ the man said. ‘Might be another, no one knows.’
‘Is anyone hurt?’
‘Didn’t stick around to find out,’ he said, pulling his arm free and running on.
Sandrine’s heart was thudding in her chest and her muscles were taut, but she kept going. Across rue Voltaire, then straight ahead she saw the devastation. The Garden of Remembrance looked like a quarry. Masonry, bricks. The rose trees lining the paths were snapped and twisted, there was rubble everywhere. The west door of the cathedral was obscured by a cloud of dust. The façade was still intact, but the semicircular stone surround and the pillars on one side were broken, torn apart by the impact of the blast.
Sandrine, Marianne and Suzanne looked in disbelief at one another, then went into action. Everywhere, injured people, dazed people, sitting on the ground. Some lying. Sandrine crouched down beside a teenage boy, who was nursing a wounded arm. His face was white with pain.
‘Help’s on its way,’ she said.
The boy opened his eyes. ‘My father will kill me. He didn’t want me to come.’
‘My sister didn’t much want me to come either.’
‘Then we’re both for it.’ He tried to grin, then closed his eyes. ‘I’m cold,’ he whispered.
As Sandrine adjusted the jacket on his shoulders, over his broken arm, she noticed his shirt was drenched. She lifted the jacket and saw, to her horror, a jagged piece of metal lodged in his side. Blood was pooling on the pavement beneath him.
‘Am I going to be all right?’ he said. ‘I’m so cold.’
Sandrine tried to keep her voice steady. ‘The ambulance is on its way,’ she said. ‘Try to keep still.’
She waited with him, watching him grow paler, more transparent, until at last the medics arrived. From the expression on their faces, she knew they didn’t rate his chances either.
Shocked by what she was witnessing, Sandrine moved on to the next person, then the next, doing what little she could. Smears of blood on the ground, turning brown in the heat of the sun, a child’s shoe.
Suddenly all sound seemed to slip away from her. All heat, all colour, everything fading to grey, to white. And then, the same whispering she’d heard at the river.
‘Coratge,’ a girl’s voice.
Sandrine spun round, then around again. There was no one there. No one anywhere near her. Yet the same sensation of cold air brushing her skin.
‘Coratge, sòrre.’ Courage, sister.
‘Sandrine?’
A hand on her arm made her jump. She blinked and saw Jeanne Giraud looking at her.
‘Are you all right? You’re as white as a sheet.’
‘I thought I heard someone calling me, but . . .’ She stopped, seeing the look of concern on Jeanne’s face. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘I’m looking for my father-in-law, I don’t suppose you’ve seen him? We got separated on the boulevard Barbès. Someone said they saw him here, by the cathedral, just before the explosion.’
‘I don’t know, I’m afraid.’
‘He forgets he’s not young any more,’ she said, then moved off to continue looking.
Sandrine stood still. She saw the last of the wounded being helped into an ambulance. The door was slammed shut, then the siren rang and the ambulance pulled away. She noticed now there was a line of police cars in front of the Bastion du Calvaire. She turned to her right and saw the same at the top of the boulevard.
‘Does anyone know what happened?’ she asked, when Marianne and Suzanne joined her.
‘No, reports are muddled,’ Marianne replied, wiping her hands on her scarf.
‘Some are blaming the partisans,’ Suzanne said.
‘You did well, darling,’ Marianne said, giving a brief smile. ‘You kept your head.’
Sandrine looked at her big sister. Seeing the pride in Marianne’s face, despite the tiredness, she felt something had changed between them. She smiled back, trying not to think about the boy and the blood on the ground. Another police car went past at top speed, its siren blaring, then a second.
‘Where’s everybody being taken?’ she asked.
‘Most have gone to the hospital,’ Suzanne said, ‘and those who can’t risk it, in the
re.’ She nodded in the direction of the Clinique du Bastion. ‘Delteil or Giraud will patch them up, no questions asked.’
Chapter 28
César wasn’t at the print shop. Raoul hesitated, then headed for his house. He was too late.
‘Damn,’ he said, throwing himself back into an open doorway opposite.
He watched as two policemen kicked their heavy boots against César’s front door. The wood splintered and the lock gave. The door was flung back against the wall, the glass shattering over the hall tiles as the officers rushed in. Barely a minute or two later, they were back out in the blinding sun. César’s hands were cuffed behind his back and blood was pouring from his nose. He was forced into the panier à salade and driven away.
Raoul waited until the road was clear, then quickly crossed the boulevard Marcou and over into rue Voltaire, not sure where to go next. He didn’t know where Gaston and Robert Bonnet lived, so there was no way of warning them. No way of knowing if they’d already been arrested. He weighed up his options in the light of what he now knew, quickly realising the only sensible course of action was to get out of Carcassonne and try to make contact with other partisans in the region. He couldn’t do anything to help César, but he could at least warn others about Laval and make sure they got the message that the bomb had not been detonated by résistants.
Raoul ran along the rue du Port towards the cathédrale Saint-Vincent, then right into the boulevard Omer Sarraut.
In the quartier de la Gare, the clean-up operation was already underway. Newspapers trampled underfoot, flags, greased-paper food wrappings and discarded caps from bottles of beer littered the ground, the squalid aftermath of the crowds. Bonfires lit in the SNCF sidings to dispose of the litter trapped by the wire railings belched grey smoke into the blue air.
The tram was loaded full of village husbands and their wives. The whistle shrieked, shrill and insistent, as the lines began to hum. But a procession of police cars was blocking the Pont Marengo and there were officers everywhere. A horde of people was standing outside the doors to the mainline station, everyone showing their papers. Lowered eyes, a flicker of fear, their moment of bravery was over.
There was no chance of Raoul getting on to a train, so he kept walking, heading for the apartment on the Quai Riquet and praying the police weren’t already there. Muscle, skin, adrenalin, blood and bone, he took the stairs two at a time.
His mother was still standing at the kitchen sink. He rushed over and put his hands on her shoulders.
‘Maman, listen to me. Maman? This is important.’
For a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of the woman she had been in her dead eyes.
‘Bruno?’ she whispered.
Raoul had to stop himself from shaking her. ‘Bruno’s gone,’ he said in a level voice. ‘He was killed, you know he was. Four years ago.’
Confusion flickered in her eyes, a spark of anger, grief, as if she was waking up. Then hope faded and her eyes clouded over again.
‘Raoul,’ she said.
He sighed. ‘You have to listen. Soon, men will come here looking for me. Asking if you’ve seen me. If they do, tell them you don’t know where I am. They won’t hurt you. Tell them you haven’t seen me for weeks, can you do that?’ He tightened his grip on her shoulders. ‘Do you understand? If the police come, you tell them you don’t know where I am. Yes?’
For an instant, she didn’t react. Then, she nodded.
‘Got to keep my boys safe,’ she said softly. ‘Keep Bruno safe.’
A wave of pity swept through Raoul, anger too. He put his arms around her, horrified by how thin she was, how fragile. He could feel every rib through the cotton dress. She did not hug him in return, but stood rigid, unyielding.
‘That’s right,’ he said quietly. ‘Keep your boys safe.’
Raoul ran into his bedroom. He got his papers and money from beneath the mattress, grabbed Bruno’s rucksack from the back of the door and an old work jacket from the wardrobe. He pulled open the drawer in his bedside table and, from beneath a pile of laundered handkerchiefs, took out his service revolver and a box of ammunition. He put them in the rucksack too, then rushed back into the kitchen. His mother had returned to her vigil at the window, looking out for a son who would never return.
‘They’re coming,’ she murmured.
Raoul rushed to look out, but the street was empty.
‘Tell them you haven’t seen me,’ he repeated.
‘They’re coming,’ she said again, crossing herself. ‘The ghosts. I hear them. Waking, beginning to walk. They’re coming.’
Raoul couldn’t think of anything to say. His misgivings about leaving her were even stronger, but she’d be safer without him. At least he hoped he was right.
‘You haven’t seen me,’ he said again.
He found an unopened bottle of red wine and hesitated over a loaf of dark bread. He left the bread.
‘I’ll be back, Maman,’ he said gently. ‘As soon as I can, I’ll come back.’
Raoul headed down the rue des Études. He had a friend nearby he hoped might let him stay for a few hours, until it was dark at least. A third police car went past, its siren shrieking, this time heading towards the Caserne d’Iéna. The town was alive with police. As he crossed the street, he saw a panier à salade at the top of rue Voltaire. He glanced behind him, seeing there was another at the bottom of the street too.
He needed to get off the street, before they saw him. Quickly, he slipped through the wrought-iron gates of the Jardin du Calvaire and pulled them shut behind him, hoping the deep green shadows of the garden would give him sanctuary.
Chapter 29
It took the girls less than ten minutes to get back to the rue du Palais. Marianne still looked passably respectable, but the knees of Suzanne’s slacks were black from where she’d knelt on the ground. Her short hair was standing up in tufts where she’d run her fingers through it to shake out the dust.
Marieta shrieked when she saw them.
‘We’re all right,’ Sandrine said quickly, seeing how weary Marianne looked. ‘None of us is hurt.’
‘You’re covered in blood! Look at you!’
Sandrine caught sight of herself in the mirror of the hallstand and saw a wide smear, like a piece of ribbon, across her face.
‘There was an explosion outside Saint-Michel,’ she said. ‘We went to help. We’re fine.’
‘Do you think you could make us some tea, Marieta?’ Marianne said quietly. ‘We could all do with something.’ She put her hand on Suzanne’s arm. ‘You’ll stay?’
‘If there’s enough to go round.’
Marianne smiled briefly. ‘Is that all right, Marieta? A little bread and some ham, perhaps?’
Marieta stared for a moment longer, then nodded and tramped back down the corridor to the kitchen.
Marianne and Suzanne went into the salon. Marianne slipped off her shoes and sat on the sofa. Suzanne dropped down into the armchair and began to unlace her heavy boots. She pushed them off, revealing a hole in the heel of her left sock.
‘Do either of you know what happened to Lucie?’ Sandrine asked from the doorway.
Marianne shook her head. ‘I lost track of her. I could telephone.’
Suzanne shook her head. ‘I’ll go round and check later.’
Sandrine watched them for a moment, then turned and went back into the hall. After all the noise and chaos and confusion, she wanted to be on her own. She took off her outdoor shoes, found a pair of espadrille sandals beneath the hallstand, then went upstairs to the bathroom to wash her face.
She heard Marieta carrying a tray of tea to the salon and the murmur of thanks and explanations, and took the chance to slip out through the kitchen and into the small courtyard garden. Her bicycle was still leaning against the fence where Max had left it yesterday morning.
Sandrine settled herself on one of the white wrought-iron chairs set at the table in partial shade beneath the fig tree and let the tranquillity of the ga
rden wash over her. A hen blackbird was singing and there was a steady murmuring of cicadas, wasps buzzing around the ripe fruit. From time to time a lizard, quicksilver green, shot up the back wall of the house and disappeared into the cracks below the guttering.
She heard the rattle of the screen door. She looked up to see Marieta at the top of the steps, a glass in her hand. Holding tight to the railings, she made her way slowly down and placed the tumbler of lemonade in front of Sandrine.
‘There,’ she said.
Then, to Sandrine’s astonishment, Marieta pulled out one of the heavy white chairs and sat down. Her expression was so solemn and so anxious that, despite her exhaustion, Sandrine sat up.
‘What is it?’ she said quickly.
‘Madomaisèla, there’s something I need to ask you.’
Unaccountably, Sandrine felt her heart skip a beat. ‘Is something wrong?’
The old woman frowned. ‘After you left this morning, I heard the shutters banging in your bedroom. I went upstairs. I couldn’t help reading what you had written. I’m sorry.’
‘Written?’
‘The papers.’
At first, Sandrine had no idea what Marieta was talking about. Then, she realised she was referring to the notes written in the police station.
‘I’m sorry, I thought I’d picked them up. I’ll clear them away later.’
‘It’s not that . . .’ Marieta paused again, clearly trying to find the right words. ‘Some of the things you wrote – “a sea of glass” and “the spirits of the air” – those are the words he said?’
Despite the warmth of the day, a shiver went down Sandrine’s spine, as the image of the man’s face rushed back into her mind.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Kept saying the same things, over and over.’
‘And he said Dame Carcas, you are sure?’
Sandrine frowned. ‘Pretty sure. Why?’
‘Also, to tell “the old man” it was all true?’
‘Yes.’ Sandrine kept her eyes fixed on Marieta’s troubled face, trying to work out what she was really thinking. ‘He said a name, but I can’t remember it, so couldn’t put it down.’