Kaleidoscope (6 page)

‘Louis …' began Kohler, stunned by the lack of tact in one who so often used it.

‘The “fork breakfast”, Hermann. One such as those who must labour all morning in the fields are given.'

‘It is … it is what I have thought you …' The girl turned quickly away to hide her tears.

Kohler made a fist at his partner. ‘Louis, quit being a bastard,' he said angrily. ‘The kid was only trying to make up for having bitten my thumb.'

‘Ah, forgive me, my old one. I thought she stole the food from Madame Peretti on the hill. But you are so pale and thin, mademoiselle, why will you not join us?'

‘Me, I have already eaten, monsieur! At dawn. The bowl of milk and the piece of bread, since there is no coffee.'

There were chicory and barley to roast – acorns too – but St-Cyr let it pass. Everyone was sick of the ersatz life, even here in these hills.

He cut off a fat chunk of the well-smoked sausage and, nudging her arm, offered the morsel. ‘Go on, take it. Madame can always make more, eh? Isn't that what you thought when you stole these few things for us?'

Once she had tasted, she waited for more but was agonized by guilt perhaps and torn by fear – was it fear of reprisals? he wondered apprehensively.

Soon she was eating more than they and enjoying it. Ravenously!

With a sigh, she finally sat back. Not a crumb was left, though she searched for more. ‘Now perhaps, mademoiselle, you will tell us what has been going on here, eh? Your mother comes …'

‘My mother!' she cried out, flinging a hand to cover her face and bursting into tears.

Both of them had to comfort her. St-Cyr found only hatred for himself but said, ‘Please, I know it is a terrible shock for you but we absolutely must know everything you can tell us.'

She shook her head. ‘I saw nothing.
Nothing
, messieurs! I was ill – all day the temperature, then the warnings I always get, then the spasms – twice, yes, yes,
twice
they came in the night, and then again.'

‘Who did your mother come to meet? That old woman on the hill? Come, come, Mademoiselle Buemondi, one would have to be an idiot not to notice the sausage mill and the goose livers for the
pâtés
.'

‘She … she …'

‘Was working a fiddle,' sighed Kohler, loving it. ‘She was lugging food to Cannes and Bayonne, was that it?' he laughed. ‘The black market, eh?'

‘Yes, yes, she was … was dealing in little things. One has to, isn't that correct, Inspector?'

The rage was instant, the hatred all too clear in those dark, misty eyes. ‘She was doing it to buy the medicines for
me
, monsieur. Me! Her daughter who is ill.'

Kohler felt like a bastard. Louis said with all humbleness, ‘The phenobarbital, Hermann. A sedative and hypnotic'

‘The Dilantin, monsieur, the anticonvulsant, and the Diamox, the diuretic. Where, please, since you work for the Germans, are we who are so ill supposed to get our medicines if
not
on the black market?'

St-Cyr met her gaze, noting again how intense it was and how thin the face. ‘Even on the black market you would have no guarantee of what you were getting or of the strength,' he said. A cold fish – he could see her thinking this. Her right eye appeared as if only slightly lower than the left. This hardened the expression and made it more remote perhaps than she wanted.

A small brown mole on the upper edge of the right cheekbone was just below the eye on the periphery of its hollow circle. The brows were wide and dark and extremely handsome, the nose exquisite – perfect in such a face, the lips … that slight pout of what? – iron discipline? he asked and said, Quite the finest lips. Given a little more meat on her bones, she would be absolutely beautiful, if in a haunting way. Yet now … now she was like a defiant angel, a paragon of virtue searching his dark soul and defying him to uncover her, but why?

‘So, is it your wish to imprison me, Inspector, for someone else's crime?' she asked.

Collaborator! she silently screamed. Resigned to such accusations these days, St-Cyr sadly shook his head. ‘No. No, of course not. But your mother's contact in Cannes or Bayonne? Is it that she had a falling out with him and was killed because of this?'

She felt her brow. ‘If so, monsieur, then why was she killed in these hills? Why not in the streets of Cannes or at the villa my father wanted so much to sell? Mother did not use the villa – it was shut up on the day of the Defeat – but she wanted it kept for me and my sister and so would often check on it, I suppose.'

‘Ah! the sister,' said St-Cyr, deeply concerned. ‘Someone will have to notify her of what has happened.'

‘Could you?' she asked, clasping her shoulders now for warmth, so much so that Kohler got up to find her a shawl. A magnificent thing of vibrant colours and designs. Sudden slashes of crimson, great swaths of yellow on a russet background, green … green everywhere, even in the flecks.

Trembling, the girl wrapped the thing about her shoulders but appeared as if to hate the very touch of it. Fear? he wondered.

He tucked the shawl about her neck and gave her a fatherly pat on the back. No bites this time. He let his hand linger just to see if everything was all right.

Louis cleared his throat as if embarrassed by the need to press on with things. ‘The address of your sister, mademoiselle, and her name?'

She would look steadily at him. Yes, yes, that would be best. ‘The address I do not know, Inspector. Me, I never knew it. My sister and I, we were very close – inseparable – until … until the sickness came upon me. Then Josette, she went away to school and me, I stayed here in these hills.'

‘Why? In God's name, why?' Both of them had spoken at the same time, the one in German she could not understand, the other in French, but the consternation, it was equal and very sincere. Ah yes.

This pleased her immensely but did not wash away the sadness. ‘Because, messieurs, to be taken with fits was considered to be demented. A shame for any family to bear, so me, I was hidden away, while Josette, she was given everything.'

‘Louis, let me at the father. I'll kill him.'

‘Me, too, my old one. Josette, mademoiselle? Surely you must have some idea of where we might find her?'

‘An actress, a dancer, a fashion-designer's mannequin when she cannot get work, and an artist's model, of course, at such times also. My sister, she has become everything that I ever wanted and that, messieurs, is why she does not come to see me and never writes.'

Good God Almighty! stormed Kohler inwardly. How could such a thing have happened? ‘You must have been taken to doctors, to a clinic perhaps?'

‘In Chamonix, yes. Yes, once I went there when I was sixteen …' The one called Hermann tossed his friend a look of alarm. ‘But … but the treatment, it was unsatisfactory and my father, he … he insisted that I come home.'

‘To the villa in Cannes?' asked the Sûreté.

‘In Le Cannet, yes. Yes, to the Villa of the Golden Oracle. I loved its garden. I was so happy there. Better … yes, yes, much better, but now … now the Germans they have come and I have had to leave. Is it true that they kill those who are sick like me, sick in the head or so poor in health they cannot survive for long?'

They were both silent as she studied them, both with lowered eyes, so yes, yes, it was all too true.

They looked at each other – looked about the cottage quickly as if in guilt. There was nothing … nothing much. It was all so very plain except for the woven things. A stone table, a hearth, a double bed, an unpainted chest of drawers and an armoire to match. Bits of pottery, a few flowerpots and glass things, the mirror … the mirror …

The shawl she was wearing.

‘Surely someone here must know of your sister's whereabouts?' asked St-Cyr.

The girl shook her head and gave it a little toss. ‘My mother and sister were estranged – separated. Mother wanted nothing more to do with Josette-Louise.'

Ah Mon Dieu
, the family crisis! ‘Is your sister living with one of the Occupying Force?' asked Hermann who could never remain patient when needed!

Again Josianne-Michèle Buemondi shrugged, a little nonchalantly this time. ‘Me, I never knew the reason for their parting, only feared it had something to do with myself.'

‘And your father?' asked St-Cyr gently.

Again the girl shook her head but did not offer any explanation, just remained quietly pensive.

‘Have you any idea who would want to kill your mother?' asked the Gestapo, uncomfortably clasping his big hands on the table in front of him.

‘Or where he would get such a weapon?' asked the one from the Sûreté.

Tears then, messieurs, to mist my tragic eyes! ‘The villa, for the weapon. My father, he had one he always kept by the fireplace in the grand salon. Italian, something from one of his family's estates near Torino. Nothing special. A hunting bow, he always called it, but with the beaten silver engraved with wild game birds of all kinds, just to show people that once upon a time, the Buemondis were somebody.'

‘Fifteenth-century?' asked St-Cyr.

‘Seventeenth, and used for
hunting
, monsieur, not for war.'

‘Then why the barbed iron tip and the leather flights?' asked the Sûreté. ‘Dédou Fratani was positive on this.'

‘Dédou … he is the
garde champêtre
among so many other things, Inspector. That one, he has the imagination but the type of bolt, it does not matter so much, does it? One for hunting could just as easily have killed her.'

‘From sixty metres, Louis. Probably from where I found this.'

Kohler set the carving on the table before him. The gasp the girl gave was real enough. Pale … she had become so very pale. Trembling, she waited but could not seem to take her eyes from the figure.

‘A
santon
, Hermann. A local custom. There are seventy or so of them, each depicting a traditional occupation in the village. The baker, the woodcutter, et cetera, et cetera.'

‘The herbalist,' breathed Kohler. ‘Was he treating your epilepsy on the side, mademoiselle, and were you paying him with this?'

Vehemently she shook her head but still could not take her eyes from that thing. ‘For epilepsy there is no cure, and the herbs, they are not sufficient,' she whispered sadly.

‘Then did you leave it among the rocks?' he asked.

Again she shook her head. They waited. They gave her time – were genuinely afraid they might well bring on another seizure.

When she got up to leave them, the black beret was tilted to the left. The shepherd's black, rough cape was linked below her chin and thrown back over the left shoulder.

St-Cyr noted the way she stood before them, defiant, proud but quivering. The rough grey trousers were obviously far too big for her. The black turtleneck pullover was someone else's too.

He noted the heavy leather belt that could well have held a pistol, a captured Luger or Mauser. Hermann saw it too, but said nothing. Only half stood with sadness, his hands still resting on the table.

‘Messieurs,' she said. ‘Until we meet again.'

They watched her leave. ‘Jesus!' exploded Kohler. ‘What the hell was that all about?'

‘A lover, Hermann. In the maquis perhaps, but then … Ah it is far too soon to know.'

St-Cyr stood in the tiny courtyard next to the shorter piece of wall. No place was quite out of the mistral but here the sun was captured so that the soul was warmed.

Weighted under boulders was his laundry. Socks, trousers, underpants, vest and shirt. If anyone should come along –
ah, Mon Dieu
, they would most certainly wonder what had happened to the Sûreté.

Wrapped in that magnificent shawl, he stood like Caesar in the shape of a much thinner Balzac. Plump, swarthy perhaps and tough, belligerent when necessary but begrudging of the meagre sponge-bath that had followed the doing of the laundry. Freezing, but refreshed, the mind alert in spite of the lousy night.

Hermann had gone off to find the hearse-driver and arrange for the body and themselves to be transported to the morgue in Cannes. Perhaps an hour was available to himself, perhaps a little more. He must search carefully; he must leave nothing unseen.

Ruefully he looked at the butt of the cigarillo Jean-Paul Delphane had left among the rocks. The juices began to run in his mouth, the pulse to quicken as the temptation of tobacco teased his very being. Should he? Could he?

With guilt, he crumbled the thing into the wind and, going quickly indoors, shut out the morning, shut out the love he had for Provence and the simple pleasure of watching things grow even in winter.

The cottage was very private and intimate in its barrenness. As he moved about, recording detail with the mind's camera, he caught a broken bit of pottery. ‘Roman,' he said aloud and asked, ‘Do we ever really come to know each other even during our most intimate of moments?'

There were some Palaeolithic stone chips, a scraper, a flint knife, then a lump of Roman bronze that was flecked with verdigris, and a tiny pale whitish-green bottle – a perfume vial from some Roman lady's boudoir.

He held the bottle up to the light from the window and marvelled at the iridescent play the work of time created as it destroyed the glass by hydration of the silica, spalling it off a skin at a time, the effect almost opalescent. He brought the bottle to his nose, casting the mind back over the centuries to
rhodium
(oil of roses),
melinum
(that of quince blossoms) and
metopium
(of bitter almonds) yet thinking, too, of Grasse and the essence factories there, the growing of flowers and their distillation. Lavender and mimosa, verbena and narcissi.

Readily he found the fawn-coloured overcoat and pale yellow cashmere scarf hanging on a peg by the door. The coat impressed him, not so much by its quality which was very good, very expensive – of vicuna, and pre-war of course – but as to why she should have worn it while lugging two suitcases into the hills.