‡
Chapter 87
LOMBRIVES
AUGUST 1942
The sky was turning from white to a pale blue in the hour before dawn when Raoul saw a solitary figure making his way up the hillside.
Baillard was no longer wearing his pale suit. Instead, he was dressed in the open smock shirt and blue canvas trousers worn by the older men of the Tarasconnais villages, though his shock of white hair and his bearing were unmistakable.
Although there was no one about, Raoul didn’t reveal he was there, in case Baillard was being followed. He watched and waited in silence as Baillard made his way up the hillside with the steady pace of a man half his age.
‘Bonjorn, Sénher Pelletier.’
‘Monsieur Baillard.’
‘We have two hours before it will be properly light.’
Raoul nodded. ‘I’m ready.’
They were south of Tarascon, in the deep valleys that ran all the way down to Andorra. Raoul followed Baillard up through a gully on a gravel path, passing several small caves with irregular openings leading into dark tunnels beyond.
‘Do you have somewhere particular in mind, Monsieur Baillard?’
‘A place the locals call the Col de Pyrène.’
After ten minutes more, they reached a plateau. Baillard stopped. Raoul saw there was a distinctive ring of large boulders, natural protection, and a cluster of juniper bushes. Beyond that, woodland.
‘This is it?’ he said doubtfully.
Baillard gestured that he should follow. When they reached the summit, Raoul saw that there was in fact a narrow opening in the rock. Invisible from below, it looked as if it led nowhere. When he peered closer, he realised there was in fact a small gap between two spurs of rock.
‘Easy to describe.’
‘Exactly so. We have to rely on Sandrine to pass on the information without them realising she’s doing so. She needs to pinpoint the place, but without coordinates or any map reference.’
Raoul bent down and looked into the darkness.
‘It’s distinctive, Monsieur Baillard, but isn’t that a problem? It doesn’t seem likely that anything hidden here would remain concealed for long, let alone thousands of years. Local people must know this stretch of the mountains.’
‘You will see,’ was all Baillard said.
He produced a battery torch from his pocket. Raoul did the same and followed him, threading his way through the limestone chicane into a tunnel shielded from the world outside. The ground sloped down. Raoul was forced to duck his head. The further they went, the lower the temperature dropped, but the air was fresh.
After a few minutes, the tunnel opened out into a wide clearing about four metres across, with a high domed roof and jagged fissures of rock that seemed to sparkle.
Raoul sent the beam of his torch all around to gauge the space. ‘I’ve heard of the Tomb of Pyrène in Lombrives and the Salon Noir in Niaux, but nothing about this.’
‘The bons homes took refuge in these mountains,’ Baillard said. ‘There are hundreds of hidden places that do not appear in the tourist guidebooks, though one day no doubt they will.’ He walked to the centre of the cave, his torch sending elongated shadows dancing over the ground. ‘But it is this that interests us.’
Raoul looked and saw that there was a long, cylindrical shaft in the centre of the ground, like a bore hole.
‘It is natural or man-made?’
‘It’s a sink hole, a fissure widened by water dissolving the limestone. But the land has shifted. This one has been dry for millennia. If I am not mistaken, the site chosen by Arinius will have many of the same properties. A number of the caves in this stretch from here to the foot of the Pic de Vicdessos have cracks in the earth like this.’ Baillard angled the beam of light down into the spiralling darkness. ‘This is why it is right for our purposes. There is a narrow ledge, do you see? If you could make it a little wider, enough to hold this, that would be ideal?’
Baillard produced a small box from his pocket.
‘Is that a forgery too?’ Raoul asked.
‘Oh no,’ he said lightly. ‘It dates from the fourth century.’
Raoul wondered how Baillard could have acquired a Roman box in the space of twenty-four hours.
‘This is walnut wood, which was widely used in the Ariège in the past. I do not yet know if Arinius himself placed the Codex in such a box – in a box at all – but again it is a story that will serve our purposes for the time being.’
‘It’s amazing it’s survived all this time,’ Raoul said.
‘The temperature is constant and it is very dry. Many things do survive undisturbed, more than we realise.’ Baillard nodded. ‘Now, if you will, Sénher Pelletier, we must hurry.’
Raoul opened his rucksack and took out the tools Sandrine had given him from her father’s garden store. A hammer, a chisel and a wrench. He peered down into the shaft, seeing that it was narrow enough for him to be able to hold himself up with braced legs. Then he took a stone and dropped it into the darkness, counting until he heard it land at the bottom.
‘About ten metres,’ he said.
He sat on the side, then put his legs out, bending at the knees, and lowered himself into the space. The rock pressed hard into his shoulders, but it was relatively flat. He took the strain of his own weight in his upper back and his thighs.
‘OK,’ he said, reaching up his right hand. Baillard passed him the hammer and the chisel. ‘Thanks.’
Slowly, Raoul worked his way down the shaft, braced across the opening, until he was level with the ledge. He found a toehold for his left foot, then jammed his right leg and knee into the rock, leaving him enough space to manoeuvre. He started to chip away at the cavity above the ledge, enlarging the space little by little, until it was wide enough to hold the box.
‘Here you are.’
He tossed the tools up to Baillard, who caught them easily and put them aside.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked Raoul.
‘Yes.’
Baillard lay flat on the ground, holding out the box at full stretch into the hole. Raoul strained to reach up to take it.
‘A little further,’ he said. ‘I’ve almost got it.’
Baillard worked his way further forward on his stomach, spreading his legs for balance until Raoul’s fingers grasped it.
‘Got it,’ Raoul said.
He put the box inside the cavity, then scooped some of the dust and scree from the ledge and smeared it over the lid.
‘Is it done?’ Monsieur Baillard asked.
Raoul heard the urgency in his voice.
‘All done,’ he said.
He made it back to the surface more quickly than he had gone down. Raoul wiped his hands on his trousers, brushed the worst of the climb from his clothes, packed the tools back in the rucksack and stood up.
In silence, the two men made their way back along the tunnel, through the chicane of rock, towards the light. Raoul stopped in the entrance, half expecting to see a line of soldiers waiting for them, but the countryside was as still and quiet as before.
He sighed with relief. He struck a match and lit a cigarette.
‘Do you want me to secure the cave?’ he asked.
‘No. When Madomaisèla Sandrine talks about Antoine having found the Codex, she will imply that this is a new hiding place, one chosen by Antoine, rather than the original place. In truth, I think little will happen until Antoine Déjean’s funeral. Madomaisèla Eloise is already setting rumours running in Tarascon that something’s been found.’ He looked at Raoul. ‘You are willing to remain here and keep watch? You might be waiting some time.’
‘I’m as safe here as anywhere,’ he said. ‘How will I get a message to you when I need to?’
‘Madomaisèla Eloise will arrange for food and drink to be brought to you. Each afternoon at three, a messenger will wait for you at the crossroads on the Alliat road.’ He broke off and pointed to the crest above the plateau. ‘The password will be:
“Cazaintre’s garden is overgrown.” Your response will be: “Monsieur Riquet is tending to it.”’
Raoul wondered if the choice of password was a coincidence or deliberate in some way. If not, how did Monsieur Baillard known he’d hidden from the police on Bastille Day in the Jardin du Calvaire, designed by Cazaintre, or that his home was on the Quai Riquet?
‘All right.’
Baillard looked at the sky. ‘My profound thanks, Sénher Pelletier. But now, if you will forgive me, I must leave you. I should be back before it gets much lighter and the town begins to wake.’
He turned to go.
Quickly, Raoul reached out and touched his arm. ‘Don’t let anything happen to her, Monsieur Baillard.’
Baillard stopped. ‘She told me to do the same for you,’ he said gently, ‘though Sandrine is more than capable of looking after herself. It is one of the reasons you can let yourself love her.’
‘Let myself?’ he echoed.
Baillard gave a soft smile. ‘There is always a choice,’ he said quietly. ‘You have chosen to try to live again, have you not?’
Raoul looked at him, trying to understand how the old man could see inside him so well.
‘Just keep her safe,’ he said. ‘Please.’
‘Si es atal es atal,’ he said. ‘A bientôt, Sénher Pelletier.’
Raoul watched as Baillard walked away down the hillside, waiting until he was out of sight. Then, with a cold fist of dread in his chest, he turned and climbed up into the woods above the cave to find somewhere to keep watch. All the time, Monsieur Baillard’s parting comment going round in his head like the half-remembered verse of a song.
The words gave him no comfort. He tried to reassure himself. At the moment, at least, Sandrine was with Marianne and Marieta and the others in Coustaussa. It was Saturday now, so four days until she was to go to Tarascon to put Monsieur Baillard’s plan into action.
‘What will be will be,’ he repeated.
Chapter 88
LE VERNET
Lucie looked out of place, pretty in powder and paint. She was wearing a tailored blue and white dress and jacket, with high-heeled blue shoes and matching handbag. She looked as if she should be listening to the Terminus Band at Païchérou. Sandrine felt shabby by comparison, in a flowered summer dress and sandals, her hair held off her face with a white ribbon.
The journey was long and frustrating. They drove south from Couiza to Quillan, then cross-country to Foix – where they left the car in a lock-up garage belonging to an old friend of Marieta’s – before boarding a train that stopped and started. There was no one checking papers, but there was no published timetable either, and they spent much of the morning travelling very short distances from branch line to branch line.
The closer they got to their destination, the more Sandrine perceived a heaviness, a brooding malevolence in the countryside around them, like a slumbering animal resting somewhere out of sight. Finally the train stopped. Sandrine saw the modest station house, a dull whitewash, and read the name LE VERNET on the side. Conifers and birch lined the road leading from the station into the village.
Lucie stood up. She looked purposeful, though Sandrine could see the strain in the lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth.
‘Here we are,’ she said in a bright voice.
They disembarked into the flattening heat of midday. There was a pleasant breeze coming down from the mountains and the air was fragrant, fresh, which struck a false note. It seemed wrong, Sandrine thought, that the village should be beautiful and tranquil, given what she knew was hidden within the folds of the hills ahead.
A few other passengers got off too. Some were local, dressed in heavy mountain skirts with shawls knotted at the waist. An old man held a dead goose upside down, its glassy eyes seeming to fix on Sandrine. There were two men in black suits, lawyers Sandrine thought, or perhaps members of the military administration. They seemed to know where they were going.
Sandrine looked at the carriages that had been added at Foix. They were being uncoupled by the guard, but no one was getting out. Then she saw the blacked-out windows and realised there were prisoners inside. Remembering the bleeding faces and shackled hands of the men as they were forced into the carriages at Carcassonne, she glanced at Lucie. She looked anxious but hopeful, and the sight of her hardened Sandrine’s resolve. Whatever they achieved today, at least they were doing something. Something had to be better than nothing.
On the outskirts of the village, the man with the goose disappeared towards a series of modest houses and cottage gardens. The two countrywomen took a road to the right, which appeared to lead to a park a little further along the banks of the river Ariège.
The girls followed the lawyers. Sandrine overheard fragments of conversation, like morsels of bread dropped on the path. Something about a fire that had broken out in the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, destroying works by Picasso and Dalí.
‘All reappropriated,’ one of the men said. ‘Jewish art.’
Above the red roofs of the houses, the spire of a church was visible. Sandrine assumed that was the centre of the village.
‘We need to ask someone,’ she said. ‘No sense just wandering about.’
‘What about there?’ Lucie said, pointing at a café with a cheerful yellow and white awning.
It was gloomy inside the café. Three or four old men were standing at the bar, elbows propped on the zinc, drinking Pastis. There was a scattering of damp stubs of cigarettes already smoked on the bare earth floor at their feet. They looked up as Sandrine and Lucie walked in. One of them said something under his breath and the others laughed.
‘How about here?’ said Sandrine, choosing a table with a view of the street and as far away from the bar as possible. ‘This should do us all right.’
They sat in silence, Lucie holding her handbag neatly on her lap. Her joie de vivre had deserted her. Sandrine put her parcel on the stool beside her.
The waitress, with a mass of black hair and eyes the colour of coal, came out from behind the bar.
‘Señoritas, what can I get you?’
‘Do you have any wine?’ Sandrine asked.
‘Red only.’
‘That’s fine. Lucie, is that all right for you?’
‘Anything,’ she said. She stood up. ‘Is there a bathroom?’
The girl pointed to a door at the back of the café. ‘Across the courtyard, second door on the right.’
Lucie stood up and left.
‘Your friend got someone in there?’ the waitress said sympathetically.
‘In the camp?’ Sandrine looked at her in surprise. ‘How did you know?’
‘I’ve never seen you here before and your friend is all dressed up. That’s how they usually look.’
Sandrine glanced towards the door, checking Lucie was out of earshot, then back to the waitress.
‘We were hoping to see him.’
The girl raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ll be lucky, unless you have friends in the administration there. Or you have a pass to visit.’
Sandrine shook her head. ‘No.’ She looked at the girl. ‘You know how things work up there?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve been here five years.’
‘You’ve seen some changes.’
‘My grandfather remembers the camp being built in the summer of 1918. It was just barracks for French colonial troops. Then it was used for German and Austrian prisoners of war. When they’d all gone, it was empty for a bit, then it became a reception camp for International Brigade prisoners, fleeing Franco’s forces. That’s when I arrived, in 1938.’
‘And stayed.’
‘Family,’ she said, then shrugged. ‘They’ve been building new huts in all the sections over the past few months to house more and more prisoners. Even though they’re shipping the Jewish prisoners out as fast as they bring them in.’
‘Where are they being sent?’
‘Camps in the East, they say. Poland, Germany. Vi
chy is cooperating with Hitler to hand over all foreign Jews captured in the region.’
‘And if someone’s French?’
‘Technically, it’s only foreigners,’ said the girl, dropping her voice, ‘but everyone knows that Vichy has quotas to fill. It’s more of a transit camp.’
The girl stopped dead, clearly seeing the expression on Sandrine’s face.
‘Your friend is Jewish?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry, I should have thought before I rattled on.’
‘Better we know what the situation is,’ Sandrine said.
‘After the Armistice, everyone expected the Germans to take over the camp, but they didn’t. It’s still run by “our” police, though conditions are appalling. At least, conditions are bad in Section A and Section B – where the ordinary criminals are held – but in C section . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Even if you could get inside, I’m not sure it would do your friend much good to see it.’
‘Do you think there’s any chance we’ll be able to deliver a parcel in person?’
‘No, not unless you’ve got the right piece of paper from the authorities.’
‘Can we do that from here?’
‘Not a chance. It takes months. The Préfecture in Toulouse say it’s a matter for the Sûreté Nationale, the Sûreté claim it’s a matter for the military authorities, and they send you back to the Préfecture. Occasionally, someone fetches up at the Mairie here, hoping to try their luck.’
‘Are they successful?’
The waitress pulled a face. ‘Occasionally. The camp is under the jurisdiction of the Deuxième Bureau. Before the Armistice, it was at least possible to apply for a permit to visit. Now, it’s closed to everyone except military personnel, occasionally though, someone from the Red Cross gets in to see a particular prisoner or another.’
‘My friend has sent a letter but not heard anything back. She doesn’t know if it’s even been delivered.’