Citadel (30 page)
Baillard turned the corner and straight away saw his old friend sitting at his usual spot at the end of the terrace, overlooking the river Ariège and the Pont Vieux. He looked a little heavier and was grey now, but it was the same grizzled profile, the high forehead and tufts of hair that wouldn’t lie flat.
He walked over to the table. ‘
Bonjorn
, Achille,’ he said.
Pujol frowned at the interruption, then broke into a wide smile. ‘Audric Baillard, I’ll be damned. You got my letter, then?’
Audric nodded. ‘How go things with you,
amic
?’
‘Could be worse,’ Pujol said, gesturing with his hand. ‘Then again, could be better.’ He reached over and dragged a chair across from the adjacent table. ‘I’m glad you came.’
‘Your letter said it was urgent,’ said Baillard, sitting down. He put his hat on the table. ‘
Qu’es aquò?
’ What is it?
‘Antoine Déjean,’ Pujol said. ‘Do you know him?’
Baillard became still. ‘What have you heard?’
He listened without interrupting as Pujol gave a clear and concise précis of his conversation with Pierre and Célestine.
‘But in over three weeks, nothing,’ Pujol finished. ‘Boy seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. No one knows anything.’
Baillard frowned. ‘And Sénher Déjean said the man looking for Antoine was German?’
Pujol nodded. ‘Time was, Audric, do you remember, when we couldn’t move for Germans down this way. All those expeditions grubbing about, the spring and early summer of 1939.’
‘I do.’
‘There was also that odd lot – the Polaires, they called themselves – claiming to be after evidence of some kind of ancient super race or something. And that French expedition from Chartres, funded by . . .’ He clicked his fingers. ‘What was the man’s name?’
‘François Cécil-Baptiste de l’Oradore.’
‘That’s it. Quite a memory you’ve got.’
Baillard’s eyes darkened. ‘I had some association with the family in the past,’ he said. ‘Though they went by a different name in those days.’
‘De l’Oradore lodged a complaint about the Germans, must have been July 1939, maybe August. Ironic that, now, when you come to think about it. Claimed they were after the Cathar treasure, would you believe it?’
Baillard looked at him, but said nothing.
‘The point is, when Pierre’s neighbour saw Antoine in Carcassonne, she reported the first thing he said, when he heard there had been someone asking after him, was – and I’m quoting here – was he “an old man in a pale suit”?’ He paused. ‘I assumed he was referring to you, Audric. I hoped you might know something.’
Baillard nodded. ‘Antoine was working for me, Achille. He was supposed to leave a package for me in Rennes-les-Bains, but it didn’t arrive. He didn’t arrive.’
‘Oh.’
‘And no word.’
‘What was in this package?’
‘A map.’
‘Of what?’
‘The hiding place of something of enormous importance,’ he replied. ‘Something that might – could – change the course of the war.’
Pujol’s eyebrows shot up, but something in the tenor of Baillard’s voice dissuaded him from asking anything else. He took another mouthful of beer.
‘Do you remember Otto Rahn, Achille?’ Baillard said quietly.
‘I heard he did for himself. Sleeping pills, wasn’t it?’
‘Possibly.’
Pujol’s gaze sharpened. ‘It’s like that, is it?’
‘
Benlèu
,’ Baillard said. Perhaps.
Pujol took another gulp of beer. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised, a very nervy chap. They were always hanging about together, Rahn and Déjean, thick as thieves the pair of them. Poking about in the caves without any kind of permission, looking for God knows what. Lombrives, Niaux, further over to Lavelanet and Montférrier, all the way up to Montségur. Spouting all sorts of nonsense, calling each other by odd names.’
‘
Gottesfreunde
,’ said Baillard. ‘The German equivalent of
bons homes
. What people are now inclined to call Cathars. Rahn put his thoughts down in two rather peculiar books,
The Crusade Against the Grail
being one. Later, he wrote about the time he spent in Montségur, though he doesn’t mention Antoine by name. It was published in 1936, the same year Rahn was accepted into the SS.’
‘Yes, I heard they got their hooks into him.’
‘Rahn was a naïve young man, easily influenced. He was flattered to be taken seriously. He did not realise what they wanted from him.’
‘Are you telling me all that back then is tied up with Antoine’s disappearance now?’
‘Yes.’
Pujol looked hard at him, his eyes sharp. For a moment, Baillard got a glimpse of the high-ranking police detective he once had been. Astute, principled and determined.
Pujol stood up and threw a note down on the table. ‘I have a bottle of wine at home. We can continue our conversation there. What do you say?’ He looked up at the sky. ‘Get back before the storm hits.’
‘I think it is still some way off,’ Baillard said, ‘but yes. This is a conversation we should have in private.’
COUIZA
W
ith mixed feelings, Sandrine opened the carriage door and stepped down on to the platform. She felt as if she might see her old self, the girl she had been three summers before, waiting to meet her. Long socks, her hair in plaits still. Her father in his light summer suit and Marianne, fresh from her first term of teaching, their cases piled high for a month of swimming and playing cards and lazy, long summer days and nights.
‘Can you help me with the bags, Liesl?’
Marieta was gathering her things. Sandrine smiled. She, at least, never changed. Then Sandrine saw another familiar face. Ernest, the station master, waving and pushing a rattling luggage trolley fast along the empty platform to greet them. His uniform strained across his broad chest. His black handlebar moustache seemed more impressive.
‘Madomaisèla Sandrine, a pleasure to see you. We got your message saying you were on your way.’ He stood back. ‘And look at you! So tall.’
‘Thank you.’
His face grew solemn. ‘May I say, we were all very sad to hear of your father’s death. He was a fine man.’
She accepted his condolences with a quiet smile. ‘He was.’
‘Will Madomaisèla Marianne be joining you?’
‘Not for the time being.’ Then, aware of a flutter of nerves in her stomach, she turned to Liesl. ‘But this is a cousin of ours, from Paris. In case anyone asks.’
Ernest peered over the top of his spectacles. Sandrine hated lying to him, but over the past couple of weeks it had become clear how precarious Liesl’s situation was. They still had no idea where Max had been taken, and rumours were circulating, terrible stories, unbelievable, that even children were now being arrested in Paris with their parents and sent to camps. Even with the oldest of friends, they could take no risk.
Ernest held her gaze for a long moment, then tipped his hat to Liesl.
‘Nice to meet you, Mademoiselle Vidal.’
Sandrine gave a sigh of relief. It was the first hurdle. If he was prepared to collude with the pretence, then she hoped their neighbours would do the same.
Liesl smiled. ‘Oh, it’s not . . .’ She turned pale, stopped, remembered what she was supposed to say. ‘It’s a pleasure to be here, monsieur. And please, call me Liesl.’
Marieta finally descended from the carriage.
‘
Bonjorn!
’ Ernest cried, lapsing immediately into Occitan. ‘
Benvenguda
.’ He held out his hand to help her down the steps.
‘
Bonjorn
,’ she replied, then prodded his corpulent stomach with her finger. ‘I see rationing agrees with you.’
Ernest roared with laughter, and even Liesl smiled. Sandrine felt the knot of tension below her ribs loosen a little more as she listened to the two old friends exchanging news.
‘Will you be staying long, Madomaisèla Sandrine?’ Ernest asked, piling the cases on to the trolley.
‘A week or so at least. Marieta and Liesl will be here for longer.’
‘If you need any help, the new mayor here is not so bad. He can be trusted.’
‘I need to sort out our papers and rations,’ she sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better come back to the Mairie later, once I’ve seen Liesl and Marieta settled in the house.’
‘My brother assists at the town hall,’ Ernest said in a low voice. ‘How about I tell him you will be in to see him later in the week, with your
cartes d’identités
and your ration books.’
‘Could you arrange that?’ she said hopefully. ‘I’d be so grateful.’ Going all the way up the hill, then coming all the way back to stand in another queue was the last thing she felt like.
‘A few days here or there, I can’t see that will be a problem. And if there’s anything extra you need,’ he said, dropping his voice even lower, ‘you just let me know.’
‘I will,’ she said with a broad smile. ‘If we’re stuck, we’ll come to you. Thank you.’ Sandrine looked out to the concourse. ‘Is there likely to be a bus this afternoon?’
Before the war, there had been two buses a day that ran along the valley of the Salz, one from Couiza to Arques, the other from Couiza to Rennes-les-Bains. Since Coustaussa was early on the route, they could catch either one.
‘Not every day, but you’re in luck. And Madame Rousset has arranged for Yves to meet you at the stop below Coustaussa and take you up to the village.’
Sandrine glanced at Marieta, enormously relieved to hear that they weren’t going to have to walk up the steep hill with their luggage.
‘That was thoughtful, thank you.’
Sandrine went to pick up her case, but Ernest got there first.
‘We still have standards, mademoiselle. We’re not going to let those criminals in Vichy change everything, è.’
He accompanied them down the platform and through the ticket hall, then loaded the bags on to a bus waiting at the front of the station.
‘The driver should be here any minute,’ he said, tipping his hat. ‘Let me know if there’s anything you need, I’m sure we will be able to come to some arrangement.’
‘I will, of course,’ she said, biting her lip to stop herself smiling at the idea of sweet, honest Ernest being part of the
marché noir
.
The fierce Midi sun hit Sandrine the moment she stepped out of the shade of the station building. The Tramontana was whipping up the dust, brown clouds of grit and clogged air, scraps of paper and a few dry leaves spiralling in the wind in circles.
‘It’s so humid,’ Liesl said. ‘Will there be a storm?’
Marieta shook her head. ‘Tomorrow, maybe.’
Sandrine could see that Liesl felt terribly out of place. Here, more than in Carcassonne, she looked like a Parisian. A girl who belonged in a white dress and hat strolling along Haussmann’s elegant boulevards. Not in the dusty garrigue of summer in the Languedoc.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked quietly.
Liesl nodded.
Sandrine looked at the other people milling around the square. Women in flowered dresses and children sucking iced lollies, a few old men. A young priest stood a little apart from the others, his complexion like wax, in a black soutane, his nose stuck in a book. At first glance things seemed much the same, but the atmosphere was different. Before the war there were always plenty of summer tourists. Now it was a local crowd. But there was also a kind of watchfulness. As if no one quite trusted anyone any more.
The driver emerged from the café and shambled towards his bus, cigarette stuck to his bottom lip, a newspaper under his arm and his napkin still tucked into his collar. Within minutes, all the fares had been paid and everyone was seated in a muddle of packages and parcels, dogs on laps, children standing between their mothers’ legs, cycles fixed on the rack at the back. The tiny glass windows were tilted open as far as they would go, but it was still stiflingly hot. Two elderly women in hairnets and heavy seersucker dresses wafted paper fans backwards and forwards, sending a welcome draught Sandrine’s way.
The bus wheezed and belched its way out of the station and soon they were on the route de Coustaussa, heading east. Napoleon’s marching trees gave welcome shade from the hot August sun. Neighbour began to chat to neighbour, a whining child was slapped and started to grizzle, an old man carrying a can of cooking oil like a baby in his arms began, softly, to snore.
Sandrine smiled, despite everything. It was hard to believe that anything could ever affect the quiet and tranquillity of this ancient place.
‡
‡
GAUL
COUZANIUM
AUGUST AD 342
A
rinius reached the small settlement of Couzanium in the middle of the afternoon. He set up makeshift camp by the river Atax, the same river that flowed through the Carsac plains. Removing his sandals, he dipped his tired feet in the water, letting the current cool his blistered skin. Then he rinsed his handkerchief, thick with dust from the journey. He couldn’t shift the spots of blood. They were faint, barely visible, but still there all the same.
The hour and time of his passing was in God’s hands. Arinius did not know how much time might be given to him. He had seen men die quickly of the illness he carried within him, or survive for some time, in a few cases, for years. He did not know how long the precious text would need to remain hidden. For one lifetime or a thousand? The simple truth was that if he did not ensure the Codex could be found again when the time was right, then it might as well have been consigned to the fires in the community at Lugdunum. He had to survive long enough to achieve these things.
He spread the handkerchief out on a rock to dry in the sun, weighted to stop it blowing away, then sat back to eat. The wine was almost gone, but he ate the last of his cured ham and almonds, then set out to explore the modest collection of dwellings.
In these furthest reaches of the Empire, principles of trade and commerce still held strong. Drawn by the noise, Arinius walked towards the heart of the settlement, where itinerant merchants had set up an informal market in the shadow of the bridge. He perused the stalls – furs and cloth, rabbits for the pot, herbs and strings of red beads.
