Read Kaleidoscope Online

Authors: J. Robert Janes

Kaleidoscope (7 page)

BOOK: Kaleidoscope
10.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

The suitcases were sitting under her hat and gloves. The hat, a matching cloche with a bit of pale yellow veil, was totally unsuitable for this time of year. The gloves were leather and pre-war, of summer perhaps or fall. The suitcases were from Louis Vuitton and very, very good. Prewar as well, but looking a little scruffy.

He tried the left pocket, felt the softness of the wool, let the sensuality of its touch race through him. Found a key, a half-used book of Cannes tram-tickets, her papers, ration book – pale pink in colour – bread: 375 grams per day in 25-gram slices, each ticket good for one slice with the meal; cheese: 20 grams if one could get it and it was a day for cheese in the restaurant.

Madame Anne-Marie Buemondi; profession: none; nationality: French; place of birth: Annecy, near the Swiss border and near Chamonix; date of birth: 16 December 1890.
Ah Mon Dieu
, murdered on her birthday!

Height: 170 centimetres; weight: 68 kilos; hair: blonde, natural; nose: normal, its dimension average; eyes: brown.

A vicuna coat, a woman of some substance but of it now? A birthplace far too close to Chamonix for comfort.

The travel papers and
laissez-passer
– the much-sought-after
ausweis
of the Germans – allowed her to travel freely between Cannes and Bayonne on the grounds of medical necessity.

The
ausweis
was signed by the Generalmajor Harald Riedke of the Kommandantur in Marseille. It was dated 18 November 1942, and he wondered not just why she'd had to go to Marseille to get it but how the hell she'd got it so soon, seeing as the Germans could only have been in the city for a week.

Money? he asked, not liking the drift, or a forgery?

Two addresses were given, and neither would have raised any eyebrows among the Occupying Forces or the Vichy police. The villa in Le Cannet was certainly not given, simply a house in Bayonne on the Quai des Corsaires, and another on one of the back streets in Cannes at the foot of the hills. Again he had to wonder about her.

The other pocket held a thin bundle of thousand-franc notes – ten of them, a few fives, one fifty, a handful of change, lipstick, compact, handkerchief, and a beechwood bobbin.

St-Cyr drew in a breath, his nostrils pinching in thought as he held the bobbin. It was wound with four or five strands of russet wool, the nuances of colour ranging from a rich, dark, earthy shade to that of autumn's pale whisper among old leaves. There were flecks of sunlight too, that made the wool almost glisten with gold in places.

He brought the bobbin to his nose and drew in the smell of the wool. Hand-carded and spun. This one used only the stuff of the hills and she dyed it herself. But she was not the wearer of the coat.

Quickly he ran his hands up under the lapels and when he found the enamelled pin, stopped his heart and listened to the wind outside before removing it. The Cross of Lorraine, the newly taken symbol of the fledgeling Resistance, of those who secretly were for de Gaulle and the Forces of the Free French in London.

Though he tried, he could not see Madame Anne-Marie Buemondi having been so foolish as to have worn such a thing. And he knew that, for the moment or all time, he could not possibly tell Hermann of it.

When he came to the mirror, which hung on the wall above the bureau, his troubled mind caused him to pause. The frame was wide and of flaking gilt, the glass rectangular and bevelled, the thing of a size just sufficient for one to view the face and hair perhaps, or the bodice by standing on the tiptoes. In places the silver backing had vanished, leaving triangular slashes; in others, it had attained almost coppery hues. The mirror was obviously something bought in one of the country flea markets. Yes, yes, he said impatiently. So she wanted a little something primitive and simple in her life, and she bought this cottage and the adjoining land as a retreat.

Caught among the reflections were the window and then … why, yes, the door and the coat.

And in between, a small throw rug and a rush-backed rocking chair. The rug reminded him of the villa near Chamonix, and he took to staring at the shawl he wore and to fussing with it. Could the weaver have been the same?
Ah Mon Dieu
, this case. Old wounds that had never closed; new ones rapidly coming on.

When he eased open one of the top drawers of the bureau, he let out a little cry. Facing him on the neatly folded lingerie of silk and lace, pale blues and creams, pinks and whites, were two masks, the faces done with water-colours. Over the white plaster mould, the artist or artists had placed a pale wash of flesh and then had dabbed or touched in the accents. The eyebrows, the lips – the expressions, ah damn it!

The twins, he asked, but as young adults? Thin of face but not so thin as Josianne-Michèle, who would have known
absolutely
that he would have searched and found them.

That girl … what was she hiding? If she had lied about her relationship to her sister then why, if these were they, had she left them here for him to find?

Beautifully done. First the object of the artist's eye, the touch, the Vaseline and afterwards, the carefully applied layers of gauze and thin plaster. The fingers delicately tracing each feature – straws in the nostrils to allow the patient –
patient
? why had he said that? – the subject to breathe.

In orange, in yellow, in red, blue, black and shadings of green from deep to pale, the expression of the one was so stark and filled with dark thoughts, the soul found them difficult to probe. Lust, hatred, vengeance, jealousy – ah, so many tortured emotions.

The mask on the right was open and kind – vivacious, intelligent, quick-witted, high-spirited, warm and outgoing. No secrets there, the kind heart exposed for all to see and yet … and yet …

Both of them would have been no more than what? Twenty or twenty-two at the time of the mask-making? Or twenty-four?

On a shelf beside the bed, among a litter of yet more pottery shards and bits of Roman glass, he found the espadrille of a child of ten or twelve, the left foot, and with it, a small, cheap porcelain figure of the Christ at Galilee and a cross that had been fashioned by the village blacksmith out of horseshoe nails.

Determined, he went over to the suitcases and opened them but found only that they were empty.

Kohler stared at the flat box of dead rats that had been built into the floor of the hearse. The copper pipe from the wood-gas tank on the roof passed down and through the box before reaching the engine in front of the driver's seat.

‘It is a good invention, is it not?' asked Dédou Fratani, his look so full of doubt and fear that the Gestapo's detective had to laugh.

‘I like it,' breathed Kohler. Always the ingenuity of the French tickled his fancy. The rats gave the smell when the back door was opened for the inspections. ‘How do you find the Italians?' he asked, still looking at those fuzzy little bodies with their maggots.

‘Lazy. Timid and sticking together. You have seen it yourself, monsieur, at the last control, only the other day. Eight Greaseballs armed to the teeth and, on this side of the Zone Coastal, two German corporals with the single carbine.'

‘We shoot better. Besides, it's less mouths to feed and we tend to ask fewer and far better questions.' Oh-oh, eh? Is that it, my fine? he asked himself.

Mist had collected in Fratani's dark eyes behind the rimless specs. The
garde champêtre
, who had not exactly been doing his duty, swallowed tightly. ‘Of course, Inspector, the questions, they are much better. That is why the Germans, they have let us pass so easily.'

‘Not because of my badge?' snorted Kohler. ‘My Gestapo shield that I thrust into their Würtemberg mugs though the bastards swore they were Austrians?'

When no answer came, Kohler grinned and let him have it. ‘They were in on the fiddle, right?'

Who could have known the detectives would
sleep
in the hearse and question the smell? ‘Yes … yes, the German corporals are in on it. Aren't all your countrymen this way? The good ones, monsieur? The normal ones who are so far from home?'

‘Two rounds of goat cheese, a metre and a half of that sausage and three bottles of your best rosé for my partner.'

The shit! ‘Done.' They shook hands. The Gestapo had been bought but for how long?

‘Now start talking, my fine and keep it coming steadily, eh? First the water rights.'

‘The water …?' Ah no!

Kohler helped himself to the last of Fratani's cigarettes and tucked the empty packet back into the bastard's pocket. ‘We wouldn't want to litter the hillside with rubbish, would we?'

‘Madame, she …'

‘Madame Buemondi?'

‘Yes … yes.' Fratani tore his gaze away to search the hill-slope and the
mas
, the farmhouse then the village and lastly the ruins of the citadel on high.

No one was in sight but that could well mean they were being watched and the Gestapo, he … he knew of this, had seen it all before and was grinning like a wolf!

‘Madame Buemondi owns this land and leases it to both the Perettis and the Borels but only lets the Perettis draw water from her pond when needed.'

‘In return for looking after the daughter?'

‘Yes. That and the cottage she … she uses when she and …' Again the village cop was forced to swallow tightly. ‘Pardon,' he said. ‘The catch in the throat. The influenza perhaps.'

Kohler wasn't impressed.

‘She used to come to visit us,' confessed Fratani.

‘When she came to barter for a little of what you bastards were flogging on the black markets of Nice and Grasse, eh, and Cannes?'

Among other places – this was all too clear in the Gestapo's expression.

‘What else are we to do, monsieur, given that our village is so remote and we lack for many things?'

‘How many times a week do you run the hearse to market and how many caskets do yoù fill?'

‘In summer, two; in winter, one or none. It all depends on each harvest, on the time they change the controls, on so many little things. Too many bodies, too many funerals … Always there are questions.'

Kohler got the picture. It was fair enough and Fratani knew only too well that to even barter an old bicycle inner tube for a chunk of bread these days was illegal and subject not just to a fine and imprisonment, but to transport into forced labour or worse.

‘When did the victim catch on to things?'

‘Right from the start, right from when the shortages first began in Cannes. The grey bread, the sudden absence of asparagus, monsieur, a thing we used to grow in quantity in the valleys. Four, five, six crops sometimes. Ah, nothing like some others but … It was her idea that we do this, monsieur. Madame Buemondi, she was the mastermind of our little business.'

She probably was, thought Kohler, but let it pass. ‘Tell me why she would deny the Borels the right to water but give it to the Perettis?'

Nom de Dieu
, this one had the eyes of a priest! ‘Alain Borel, he …'

‘The herbalist's son?'

‘Yes, yes, damn you! He …'

‘Is in the hills,' sighed Kohler. ‘Was he the one who left this for the girl, and was it really left for her?'

Fratani stared at the carving. Startled, he asked where the Gestapo had found it and when told, gripped his stubbled cheeks, deep in thought and despair. The others would never forgive him if he told the truth.

‘Ludo Borel's eldest son gathers the herbs for his father in the mountains, monsieur, and dries them there.'

‘I asked you who left this little carving and for whom? Don't shrug, my fine, or I'll make you carry her corpse all by yourself, right to Cannes.'

‘The grandmother, Madame Mélanie Peretti, the mother of Georges.'

‘The blind woman?'

Was it so impossible for the Gestapo to comprehend? ‘She sees with the innermost eye, monsieur, and she carves most beautifully.'

‘Don't dump on me. For her to have done this, the herbalist would have had to let her put her hands all over his face.'

‘But of course.'

‘But I thought you told us the Perettis and the Borels were not on speaking terms?'

‘They're not. That is why she has left it on the hillside for the herbalist. The Abbé Roussel, he has acted as the transmitter of their words.'

The transmitter? Why not the relay, or the go-between? Why use a wireless term?

Kohler looked away to the ruins of the citadel and from there, let his eye run to the line of the nearest mountains. Da, dit, dit, da …
Merde
! An enemy transmitter in the mountains. The sap. Had he let it slip on purpose?

‘Is the herbalist's son, Alain Borel, in love with the girl?'

‘Very much so.'

‘And did the mother not agree?'

‘Did she forbid such a thing, monsieur? Is that what you mean?'

‘You know it is.'

Fratani sighed contentedly. ‘Then you are absolutely correct, Inspector. There could be no wedding, no possibility of a union and of offspring. On this, Madame was positive.'

‘Or else she'd cut off their water?'

‘She had already done that long ago, from the Borels, as I have said.'

‘From the Perettis, you idiot!'
Ah Nom de Dieu
, this one understood the hills far better than most.

‘Louis, I have to tell you something.' Kohler drew him round to the leeward side of the hearse while Fratani waited behind the steering-wheel. ‘The Perettis were supposed to keep the girl away from Ludo Borel's eldest son. Madame Buemondi threatened one of them in no uncertain terms. Georges, the old woman's son, shot her.'

‘Why?'

‘Because she would have cut off their water, and in these hills that is life.'

‘Hermann, what is it? What's really troubling you?'

‘The maquis, Louis. Your friend Delphane is using us against them.'

St-Cyr reached out to him. The gesture was so automatic, the barriers of war were instantly set aside. ‘Quietly, Hermann. Quietly, my old one. You're forgetting the pawn ticket and letting your innermost fears get the better of you.'

BOOK: Kaleidoscope
10.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Queen by Alex Haley
Stolen Grace by Arianne Richmonde
Assassin P.I. by Elizabeth Janette
Sanctuary Bay by Laura Burns
Finding Ultra by Rich Roll
My Fairy Godmonster by Denice Hughes Lewis