Citadel (10 page)
She felt the young officer’s hand in the small of her back, propelling her towards the door.
‘You are supposed to protect us,’ she said furiously, then spun on her heel and walked out.
The moment she was back in the corridor, her legs started to shake. Sandrine felt sick, with anger or nerves she wasn’t sure. She heard the door open and close, then the sound of footsteps behind her as the young officer caught up with her.
‘That wasn’t very sensible,’ he said.
Sandrine pulled a face. ‘I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get you into trouble.’
He gave a brief, sweet smile. ‘It’s all right. I’m used to it.’
He led her to a bench, sat down and took out his notebook. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’
Sandrine took a deep breath, then launched into her story. ‘I was at Païchérou this morning and there was a man in the water – I thought he was drowning, but there were rope marks on his wrists and . . . I think his family, someone, should know – but when I—’
The officer held up his hand. ‘Wait, hold on a moment,’ he said. ‘Let’s start with your name.’
‘Vidal,’ she replied. ‘Sandrine Sophie Vidal.’
‘And your address?’
‘Rue du Palais.’
R
aoul found rue Emile Zola easily enough and Antoine’s building on the corner. Six individual apartments, each with their own bell. He pressed, then stood back on the pavement and looked up. The shutters were open, but there was no sign of life. He pressed the bell again, a little harder and for a little longer, then once more stepped back and waited. The first-floor window remained closed. Finally, he rang the concierge’s bell instead. A few moments later, a thin woman dressed in black, with a sour expression and sharp eyes, answered the door.
‘I’m looking for Antoine Déjean,’ he said. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘He was here earlier.’
Raoul’s interest quickened. ‘What time was that?’
‘Can’t remember,’ she said, meeting his gaze.
Raoul slipped a coin into her hand.
‘Seven, seven fifteen.’
‘Did you actually see him?’ He got out another couple of francs.
‘No,’ the concierge admitted. ‘But I heard him moving about up there. Who else would it be, that time in the morning?’
Raoul thought for a moment. ‘The thing is, I left something with him that I need to collect. Any chance you could . . .’
She stared at him for a moment, then put the coins in the pocket of her housecoat, went into her office, took a bunch of keys from a hook.
‘Ten minutes,’ she said.
Raoul followed her up to the first floor. She unlocked the door to let him in. Stale, unused air rushed out. A scent of sour tobacco, vanilla, newspaper print hot in the sun beating in through the windows.
‘Ten minutes,’ she repeated.
There was a small lobby, leading into a large room which overlooked the allée d’Iéna, with a fold-out bed in the corner and a kitchenette with a sink and a single gas ring. A few tins of food and two apples, bruised and mouldy, in a china bowl. A narrow corridor led off the lobby to a WC and small bath at the back.
Antoine’s newspapers were stacked corner to corner on a desk, with a few banned pamphlets too. Two low armchairs were set at perfect right angles to the window, facing into the room, all oddly neat and tidy. Raoul got a book down from the shelves, put it back, not sure what he was looking for. Evidence of where Antoine had been at the weekend? Evidence of where he was now?
He looked out of the window on to the allée d’Iéna. He saw a travelling salesman arriving at the Hôtel des Voyageurs and two of the green police cars used for transporting prisoners –
paniers à salade
as they were known. They were heading towards the compound of the infantry barracks at the far end of the road.
It didn’t take long to search Antoine’s small flat. Raoul was loath to leave, just in case he came back. If it had actually been Antoine the concierge had heard. He smoked his last but one cigarette. At two o’clock, he gave up. He scribbled a note asking Antoine to get in touch, then made a quick detour to answer a call of nature before leaving. The tiny WC smelt sour, the water stagnant.
Raoul buttoned his trousers, reached over and opened the skylight window to air the room, then pulled the thin chain. Nothing happened. The water in the cistern above his head churned and gulped, but didn’t flush. He tried again, jerking down hard on the chain.
He tried once more, not sure why it bothered him so much that the toilet was blocked, only that it did. He balanced on the seat, feet either side of the bowl, but he couldn’t see inside the cistern. Under the kitchen sink he found an old-fashioned wooden plunger with a rust-coloured rubber head. He climbed back up and poked blind at the blockage with the handle, jabbing it down into the cistern, trying not to let the water slop over the sides. He could feel there was something there, hard against the ballcock. He twisted the stick, jiggered it from side to side, but still couldn’t shift the obstruction, so he rolled up his right sleeve and shoved his hand into the cistern. He felt something soft, a kind of heavy fabric, rolled into a ball. He worked it free and carefully took it out.
Raoul stepped down from the seat, shook the excess water from his hand and wiped it on his trousers, then looked at the wad of dark green waterproof material. As he started to unwrap the package, something slipped out. His hand darted out, just catching it before it hit the uneven lino floor.
It was a small pale glass bottle, heavy and opaque, the hemispherical body patterned with a beautiful blue-green iridescence on one side, like the eye of a peacock’s tail. On the other, a pattern in the glass that looked like leaves. It had a long thin neck with a small hole in the top, as if it had been worn on a chain or a thread, and a stopper of grey wool.
An unexpected explosion of knocking on the apartment door made him jump. He felt his heart lurch as he heard the rattling of keys in the lock.
‘Monsieur,’ came the shrill voice of the concierge, ‘it’s been more than ten minutes.’
‘
J’arrive
,’ he called out. ‘
Merci
.’
Raoul looked down at the exquisite tiny object in the palm of his hand, then, without thinking about it, quickly wrapped the bottle in his handkerchief and slipped it into his pocket. He put the damp cloth back in the cistern and was standing in the tiny lobby as the concierge pushed open the door.
‘I lost track of time,’ he said, dropping his last two coins into her open palm as he passed her. ‘You know how it is.’
Aware of her suspicious eyes on his back as he ran down the stairs, he hoped she wasn’t the type to call the police.
The sun was at its zenith. Keeping to the shadows, Raoul walked back towards the centre of town. He crossed the tram line and went down the boulevard Omer Sarraut past the Jardin des Plantes.
Outside the Café Terminus, a waiter was writing in chalk on a blackboard advertising they had beer. Raoul stopped. The prices were exorbitant, but he was hot, thirsty and, for once, lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The thought of a cold beer – real beer – was too much to pass up.
He checked in his pockets. He’d given all his loose change to the concierge, but he had a note he’d been saving to buy food. Raoul looked at it, and decided that beer beat the foul black bread they were selling hands down. He ordered at the bar, then took his drink outside to a table in the shade.
For a moment he just enjoyed the cold, sour taste on his tongue, on the back of his throat. Then, as usual, his thoughts started crowding in. Would the demonstration tomorrow change anything? He took another mouthful of beer, his mind turning, as it always did, on memories of war and revolution, resistance, like a permanent newsreel playing in his head.
From that, of course, to his brother. When Raoul had first arrived back in Carcassonne, he’d seen Bruno everywhere. Standing at the counter in the Café des Halles, or coming round the corner of the Quai Riquet, raising his hand to wave. So many men looked like him, reminded Raoul of his loss. As the days turned to weeks, to months, he’d seen Bruno less often. It made him miss him all the more.
Raoul raised his arm to attract the waiter’s attention.
‘
S’il vous plaît
,’ he said, ordering a second glass.
The shadows moved round. Now, as the beer took hold, weak as it was, Raoul found his thoughts moving from grief to something different, something sweeter. To the girl at the river. The way her eyes fluttered open, just for an instant, and her wild black hair, all out of place. Her strong, determined features.
‘
I
know she’s here, officer. Please check your records again.’
Sandrine looked down the corridor and saw Marianne standing at the desk in a blue dress, blue hat, matching gloves and bag. Immaculately turned out, as always.
‘Marianne!’ she cried, running to meet her.
Her sister immediately put her hand up to the cut on the side of Sandrine’s head, staining the fingertips of her glove.
‘Whatever happened? Are you all right?’
Sandrine winced. ‘It’s not too bad. How did you know I was here?’
‘Lucie came to the Croix-Rouge to let me know what had happened. She told me she and Max had taken you home, but although your bike was there, Marieta said she hadn’t seen you. I put two and two together . . .’
‘But how did you know I’d be at the police station?’
‘Lucie said she’d persuaded you not to come,’ Marianne said drily. ‘Obviously, she didn’t succeed.’ She turned to the officer. ‘Is my sister free to go?’
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
Neither of the girls was aware of him watching them leave. Or that, as soon as they’d gone, Ramond tore up his notes and put the pieces into the rubbish bin.
Sandrine could tell Marianne was cross, although she wasn’t quite sure why. She kept glancing at her, kept waiting for her to say something, but she walked fast and in silence. It wasn’t until they had passed Artozouls, with its display of fishing nets, lines, rods and hunting equipment, and were standing outside the boulangerie next to the église des Carmes that Marianne spoke.
‘Wait here,’ she said, producing a coupon from her handbag and vanishing inside.
Sandrine was aware of the sharp eyes of an old woman in a first-floor apartment in the building on the opposite side of the street. She smiled, but
la vieille
stepped back behind her lace curtain.
Marianne reappeared holding a brown paper bag. ‘It’s still warm.’
Sandrine bit into the bun, which wasn’t too bad at all. Solid, but thick with dried fruit so it tasted sweet despite the lack of sugar.
‘You’d think they’d have a queue around the block if people knew she had these available so late in the day.’
‘They don’t,’ said Marianne.
Sandrine frowned. ‘Then how . . .?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said sharply.
‘Why are you so cross?’
Marianne ignored the question. ‘You’d better tell me what happened.’
‘Didn’t Lucie tell you?’
‘No, all she said was that you’d had an accident down at the river, that she and Max had found you and taken you home.’
‘She did try to talk me out of going to the police station,’ Sandrine said, ‘but I thought I should report it. Now I wish I’d listened to her.’
‘Why?’ Marianne said quickly. ‘What happened? What did they do?’
‘Do?’ said Sandrine in surprise. ‘They
did
nothing, that’s the point. Nobody took me seriously.’
Marianne’s shoulders relaxed a little.
Sandrine continued. ‘In the end an officer took a few notes, and that was that.’ She pulled a face. ‘I was an idiot, you don’t have to rub it in. I know.’
To her astonishment, Marianne grabbed her arm. ‘Do you, Sandrine? Really, I don’t think you have any idea. That you would simply waltz into a police station – a police station, of all places – and make a scene. Didn’t you even think about Max?’
‘I didn’t mention him,’ she said, stung by how harsh Marianne sounded. ‘I gave Lucie my word I wouldn’t, though I don’t understand why she made such a fuss.’
‘Max is Jewish, Sandrine. Don’t be so naïve.’
‘Yes, but he’s French. He’s got all the right papers, hasn’t he? He’ll be all right.’
‘No one is “all right”, as you put it,’ Marianne said. ‘If he’d stayed in Paris, he’d have been arrested by now.’
‘But Maréchal Pétain is protecting Jews in the
zone libre
, that’s what it said in the paper.’
Marianne gave a sharp laugh. ‘Every week the situation gets worse, can’t you see? And because Lucie goes about with him, she has to be careful too. She gets spat at in the street; someone painted foul comments on her front door.’
‘Oh,’ said Sandrine, the fight going out of her. ‘I didn’t know.’ She paused. ‘Is that why she’s worried about her father coming back?’
‘Lucie said that?’
‘Not in so many words.’
‘Monsieur Ménard is a brute, an unpleasant man at the best of times,’ said Marianne. ‘Unkind to his wife. To Lucie too. Belonged to a right-wing veterans’ organisation for years, long before the war. In the LVF now.’ She stopped. ‘I’m just saying we have to be careful. You have to be careful. You put people at risk otherwise, even if you don’t mean to.’
Sandrine felt a shiver go down her spine. On the surface, Carcassonne and its people looked the same, but her perception was shifting, changing, slipping. Suddenly, it was no longer quite the town she loved.
‘I thought I was doing the right thing,’ she said, now thoroughly miserable.
‘I know, darling,’ sighed Marianne, the heat going out of her voice. ‘But you don’t see what’s under your nose half the time.’
‘How can I?’ she protested. ‘You never tell me anything. Besides, you’re hardly ever home these days.’
‘That’s not fair, I . . .’
Sandrine stared at her, but whatever her sister might have been about to say, she’d thought better of it.
‘What?’
Marianne shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
They walked a little further in silence for a moment, then Sandrine pushed her hand into her pocket and pulled out the notes she’d written in the police station.
