The truth hit him like a fist, taking the wind from him.
‘You’re working for them,’ he said slowly. ‘I suspected Coursan, but—’
Laval moved so quickly round behind him, César didn’t realise what was happening until the knife was at his throat, the blade tilted sharp against his windpipe.
‘Why did you go back there?’ Laval whispered in his ear. ‘Tell me.’
‘You know why,’ César said desperately.
He tried to struggle free, but Laval increased the pressure on the knife and Sanchez felt his skin split. A trickle of blood ran down his neck.
‘And Pelletier? He was there for ages, according to the concierge. What was he looking for, Sanchez?’
‘Nothing. The same. We were both looking for Antoine.’
Laval increased the pressure on the blade. Another bead of blood bubbled on César’s skin. A pop of air, catching in his throat.
‘Don’t play games, Sanchez. You were looking for the key.’
‘Key? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘We can do this quickly,’ Laval said in a cold voice, ‘or very slowly indeed, it’s up to you. So, I’m going to ask you again. Did Pelletier find the key? Did you?’
César felt like he was drowning, a swimmer gasping for air. He couldn’t breathe properly. His eyes started to flicker shut. He remembered being in the Café Saillan. Raoul had shown him something, but it wasn’t a key.
‘No,’ he gasped.
Laval put the tip of the knife into the gash and pressed until it hit jawbone. This time, César couldn’t stop himself screaming.
‘Did he find the key?’
César didn’t understand anything other than he mustn’t reveal what Raoul had shown him. Was that yesterday? The day before? He’d been an idiot. He should have confided in Raoul, but he’d held back. Kept his suspicions about Coursan to himself and not paid enough attention to Laval.
‘Where’s Antoine?’ he managed to say.
‘You’ll see him soon enough,’ Laval said. ‘Last chance, Sanchez. Tell me what he found.’
César felt his eyes closing. ‘Nothing. I swear.’
For a moment Laval released the pressure. César swayed forward, his legs too weak to hold him. The whistle of a train penetrated the gloom of the shed. He tried to raise his head.
At first he thought Laval had winded him. Then he felt a violent, snaking pain in his back as the knife was withdrawn, leaving a vacuum. After that, a ferocious aching. He was losing consciousness, but he couldn’t help himself. As he slumped to his knees, he felt Laval’s hands searching his pockets, an act both gruesome and intimate. Then the sensation of being dragged backwards, the rough scratch of grit and dust on his heels, to the furthest grey corner of the loading shed. Laval let him drop. César felt his head hit the ground with a thud, then the sound of the doors sliding open and shut once more.
Then, silence.
He tried to move. He rolled over on to his side, then hauled himself up on all fours and tried to crawl towards the door. But colours were dancing in front of his eyes, red and green and stripes. He had no strength in his arms or his legs.
He heard the shriek of the train whistle and the belch of steam as another locomotive pulled out of the station. He slumped beside a stack of dirty crates and boxes. The fingers of his right hand were twitching as he clutched at the musty air.
He was finding it hard to breathe. Now all he could think about was how thirsty he was, a glass of beer or wine, anything would do. His eyes fluttered shut, then open. Shut. He imagined himself swimming at Saissac, could almost feel the ice-cold mountain water on his arms and back, running over his lips, his face.
His legs began to shake, jerk, no longer his to control. Not swimming, choking. The skin of his bare feet patterning the dust, recording his final moments. As his eyes closed for the last time, César thought how he should have trusted his instincts.
Chapter 40
Marieta looked out of the kitchen window. Sandrine was still out there on the bench, wrapped in the blanket. She was glad the boy had kept his word and gone, but the sight pulled at her heart.
The sound of Sandrine rattling through the wardrobe in Monsieur Vidal’s room had woken Marieta at six. From the house, she had watched Raoul leave, then gone into the garden in her nightclothes to try and coax Sandrine inside. She wouldn’t come, but she had accepted the blanket and a cup of lime-flower tea laced with brandy.
Marieta felt a sudden stab of pain in her chest, taking her breath away. She clutched at the sink, the cold porcelain comforting beneath her fingers. Her heart felt as if it was struggling to keep its regular beat. She pressed the heel of her hand against her ribs, waiting for the spasm to pass. It always did. A few seconds more, and the ache faded to nothing.
Marieta lowered herself heavily down on a kitchen chair, sipping at a tisane of lime tea and saccharine. The letter should arrive in Rennes-les-Bains in a day or two. Monsieur Baillard collected all his letters from the poste restante there, as he had always done – there had never been a postal service to the remote village of Los Seres, even before the war – but even if it did arrive quickly, there was no telling when he might pick the letter up. It could be days, weeks even. She felt her anxious heart stumble and trip once more.
She wasn’t sure why she was so fearful. Because of what Monsieur Baillard had told her long ago about the legend of Dame Carcas? Or because the matter brought back the memories of that dreadful Hallowe’en at La Domaine de la Cade when her beloved mistress Léonie had died? Of the screaming heard all through the valley and the little boy crying and holding tight to her skirts? Of all those who had died that night? Or because of how worried she was now about what would happen to the girls when she was gone? About Sandrine and the risks Marianne took?
‘All these things . . .’ she muttered.
Marieta took another sip of her tisane and felt the pressure in her chest ease a little. Monsieur Baillard would find a way to be in touch with her if he thought what she had to say was important. Her expression softened. Whatever the circumstances, the thought of seeing him again lifted her spirits. Like her, his roots were in the ancient stories and landscape of the Languedoc, not these headlong, modern times.
She had first met Audric Baillard in the 1890s, when he had been a regular visitor to the Domaine de la Cade, the old estate outside Rennes-les-Bains where she’d been in service. In those days, Marieta had been a curious girl, unwilling to let things lie. She had asked her friends about him, most of whom who were, like her, servants at the good houses. Agnès, parlour maid for old Abbé Boudet, one of Monsieur Baillard’s constant friends, said her master was too discreet to let anything slip. A cousin of Marieta’s was friends with the girls who did for the ritou, the priest, of neighbouring Rennes-le-Château. But even she couldn’t find anything out about Monsieur Baillard.
Marieta’s late husband Pascal was of the opinion he had been a soldier, even though Monsieur Baillard never talked about his time in the army or where he had served. He was a famous scholar, a respected author, a gentleman. As well as Occitan and French, he spoke Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, Greek. He could read Latin and decipher hieroglyphs, Aramaic and Coptic texts.
Marieta took off her hairnet, twisting her long grey hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. Then, taking grips from her dressing gown pocket, she pinned it in its usual style. She knew she should go upstairs to dress, before anyone came down and found her sitting in the kitchen in her nightclothes, but her legs were tired and she was so short of breath.
‘Today is Wednesday,’ she muttered. The post was unreliable now. The earliest he might receive the letter would be Friday. Probably it would take longer, if it arrived at all.
Marieta’s thoughts again drifted to the past. After the fire in 1897 that had seen the Domaine de la Cade razed to the ground, she and Pascal had gone to work for Monsieur Baillard in Los Seres. She learnt then for certain that he had never married or had children o
f his own, though he had stood as guardian on more than one occasion. The letters he received from abroad were testament to that.
Marieta knew there had been someone he’d loved many years ago. It had come to nothing – she fancied the girl might have been married to somebody else – but even now, it pained her to remember how often Monsieur Baillard sat looking out over the Pyrenees, as night turned to day, as if he was still waiting for her to come back to him.
The old housekeeper settled her shoulders, trying to shake herself free of the ache in her neck and arm. To get rid of the knot of worry in the pit of her stomach.
‘Perhaps Friday,’ she muttered again. ‘Benlèu divendres.’
Chapter 41
In the small rented apartment in the rue Georges Clemenceau, Liesl Blum glanced at the clock for the third time. She didn’t understand why Max hadn’t come home last night when they had arranged to have supper together. Nor this morning either. This was how it had started in Paris. Men disappearing in the night or being arrested at dawn. Her father, their friends and neighbours. But not in Carcassonne.
Liesl had fallen asleep on the settee waiting, but when she’d woken and checked Max’s room, his bed hadn’t been slept in. She was trying to carry on as usual, though the dread was hard in her chest. She drank a glass of water and ate some bread, though she had no appetite, returning every few minutes to look out of the window. Willing herself to see her brother’s long, lean figure striding along the pavement.
Still Max did not come.
Liesl made herself sit down at the table in the living room, which was already covered with paste and scissors and paper. Her camera too, though it was hard to have film developed now. There was no ink, no good-quality photographic paper.
Since they had arrived in Carcassonne, Liesl had kept a scrapbook, everything that had happened since she and Max had left Paris two years ago when the Nazis marched in. It was foolish, in a way, but their father had always impressed upon them the importance of recording everything, writing things down. That whatever new laws were brought in, each new iniquity, they should continue to behave as they saw fit in the privacy of their own home. Liesl tried to live by his example. This scrapbook was her own small act of defiance.
She turned the pages, looking at the black and white photographs. Her eyes stopped on a portrait of her parents, her father’s arm proprietorial around her mother’s waist. Both elegant, both serious, staring straight into the camera. They had heard nothing from him – about him – for over a year. Liesl had been a little scared of him. Neither of their parents had paid much attention to her or to Max, farming them out to the care of neighbours while they campaigned and electioneered and organised rallies.
But Liesl felt she was carrying on her father’s tradition. He used words, she used images. He had been a prominent anti-Nazi campaigner, working tirelessly to expose what was happening to Jews in the countries annexed by Germany. Individual arrests at first, then the rafles, everybody rounded up at the same time and confined in ghettos. Now the same was happening in France. Little by little by little, the poison was spreading.
She turned the page, running her hand over the rough, blotting paper, this section a record of the mass arrests of Jewish families, of the thousands of Jewish men sent to camps. She stuck another cutting in, this one taken from La Dépêche. An old, but poignant image. Students in Paris had taken to wearing ‘butterflies’, anti-German stickers, and carrying their books against their chests, obscuring the yellow stars that Jews in the zone occupée were forced to wear.
Liesl glanced at the clock again, the trepidation building in her chest with every minute that passed without Max.
‘Jew!’
She jumped in alarm as a stone hit the wall next to the sitting room window with a loud thud.
‘Putain, we know you’re in there.’
Liesl turned. The boys hadn’t come last night – perhaps because there’d been too many police on the streets – but she hadn’t expected them this morning.
‘We know you’re in there, juive.’
Ugly voices shouting up at the window from the street. Another stone ricocheted off the woodwork. Liesl tried not to take any notice. They might be out there for up to half an hour, depending on who came along the street and was brave enough to make them stop.
‘Let us in, Jew. You know you want to.’
Raucous laughter. Liesl tried to stop her ears, tried to concentrate on what she was doing. They’d get bored. They usually did. What had changed? It was a normal day, why was nobody doing anything to stop them? Then another stone and the sound of the window shattering. Liesl leapt up as a shard of glass struck her on the cheek. Felt the trickle of first blood.
She ran to the door to the apartment to check it was locked and bolted. As she did so, she heard the street door downstairs bang back against the wall, and a cheer. For a moment she froze. How had they got in? Had someone let them in?
The sound of boots on the stairs propelled her into action. Liesl rushed to the table, her terrified hands trying to clear away her precious scrapbook. The smash of a fist on the inner door to the apartment made her jump, the papers slipping through her fingers. She realised she was holding her breath, as if that would keep her presence a secret.
‘We know you’re in there, garce.’ The same vile voice, now just the other side of the front door.
Another thud, a fist against wood. Then a boot. The entire door shook, the reverberations skimming along the wall.
Liesl swallowed a cry. She couldn’t believe they would break in, attack her in broad daylight. She didn’t see how such a thing could be happening. Then, the crack of wood as one of the panels in the door split. A roar of triumph went up from the boys outside. How many were there? Three? Four? More? Hateful voices getting louder, more frenzied.
‘We’re going to teach you a lesson, Jew girl.’
The boots harder against the door, the lock wouldn’t hold. They were almost inside.
Un, deux, trois, loup, the words of the children’s playground rhyme went round and round in Liesl’s head. ‘Coming to get you, ready or not.’
The sound of the front door splintering, the sound of blind hands reaching into the apartment, turning the lock. The rasp of the bolt, then a cheer as the door was flung open and the mob of boys stormed into the flat.
Chapter 42
‘Wake up, darling.’
Sandrine heard Marianne’s voice, then felt the weight of her sister’s hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake.
‘What time is it?’ she said, sitting up. Her neck was stiff and the bruise from Monday was throbbing where she’d leant against it.
‘Half past ten.’
For a moment, Sandrine felt all right. Normal. Then she remembered, and misery pressed down on her shoulders.
‘He’s gone,’ she said.
‘I know, Marieta told me.’
‘I didn’t want him to go.’
Marianne nodded. ‘I know, but it’s for the best. Come inside, have something to eat.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘There’s a little bread left, and some butter.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she repeated.
Marianne held out her hand to pull her up. ‘Don’t be silly.’
Sandrine followed her back into the kitchen. She felt cold and woolly from lack of sleep. She sat down heavily on a chair, watching as her sister poured them both a cup of ersatz coffee from the pot Marieta had left on the stove, then got out a plate and knife.
Marianne sat down on the opposite side of the table. Sandrine sipped at the coffee and started to wake up. She took a piece of bread, dipping it in her cup to soften the crust, surprised to find that she had an appetite after all.
‘Have Lucie and Suzanne gone?’ she asked.
‘Suzanne, yes, about half an hour ago. Lucie felt rather unwell, so I’ve put her in Papa’s room to sleep it off.’ She paused. ‘Since the bed hadn’t been slept in . . .’
Sandri
ne flushed. ‘We stayed up talking all night. In the garden. That’s all.’
Marianne stared at her. ‘Glad to hear it.’
‘I gave him one of Papa’s jackets and a hat. I hope that was all right.’
‘Of course. No sense wasting things.’
Sandrine ate a little more. ‘Just as he was going, Raoul told me I should talk to you.’ She watched Marianne’s reaction. ‘I said we were always talking, but I think he meant something in particular.’
On the other side of the table, her sister became very still.
‘What else did he say?’ Marianne asked. Her voice was measured, but the atmosphere was suddenly taut.
‘Just that.’
Marianne still didn’t move.
‘What did he mean?’ Sandrine asked.
Marianne hesitated a moment more, then got to her feet, went to the door and closed it. She turned round with her arms crossed. Sandrine’s heart started to hammer against her ribs. Her sister looked so determined, so resolute. And the door between the kitchen and the hall was never shut.
‘What?’ she said quickly, nervous now.
‘Listen carefully. Don’t interrupt. You have to promise that you will never breathe a word of what I’m about to tell you to anyone. No one, not a soul.’
Sandrine felt her stomach lurch. ‘I promise.’
Marianne sat down again and placed both hands flat on the table, as if trying to anchor herself.
‘Raoul guessed. Almost straight away, I could see he knew.’
‘Knew what . . .?’ Sandrine began to say, then she stopped. She felt a strange calm come over her. She knew what Marianne was going to say. All those nights her sister was late back from work and with mud on her shoes, disappearing for an hour here or there without explanation. The ‘friends’ who arrived after dark and went before it was light.