Citadel (35 page)
Lucie’s hand went to her stomach again. She had to think of the future.
A
uthié went directly from the boulevard Omer Sarraut to the Commissariat to check the police files. There was nothing on Sandrine Vidal, but it appeared there was a substantial surveillance file on her sister, Marianne.
A teacher at the Lycée des Filles on Square Gambetta, her name was on a list of teachers who had refused to implement the new academic curriculum. She had continued to teach Jews alongside French students, declined to carry out monitoring. Undesirable authors such as Brecht, Zweig and Heine remained on the shelves in her classroom. The father and mother were both dead. The only other resident of the house was a housekeeper, who had been with the family for years.
Authié re-emerged into the sunlight and looked at his wristwatch. He had plenty of time before Bauer was due to call, enough time to visit the house himself. Five minutes later he was standing in the rue du Palais looking up at the impressive façade. Vidal had clearly left his daughters well provided for. Plenty of space, he thought. The sort of house that might well be used by partisans for any number of purposes.
Authié walked up the steps and knocked. He heard muffled voices, then footsteps. The door was opened by a tall woman with short cropped hair and slacks.
‘Mademoiselle Vidal?’
The woman folded her arms. ‘No.’
‘Is Mademoiselle Vidal at home?’
‘Who wants to know?’
Authié reached into his pocket and produced his identification. The woman read it, hesitated, then stood back to let him in.
‘Who is it?’ came a voice from inside.
‘Police,’ the tall woman said, closing the front door.
Authié walked into the salon before she could stop him. A slender, brown-haired woman sitting on a sofa beneath the window immediately got to her feet.
‘Marianne Vidal?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your friend?’
‘A guest,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you, monsieur?’
‘Authié. Captain, in fact,’ he said. ‘And your guest’s name?’
‘Is this relevant, Captain Authié?’
Authié’s interest quickened. Her expression was wary. Most ordinary citizens were nervous in the presence of the police, but there was a watchfulness in this woman’s eyes that suggested something more guarded.
‘Don’t be obstructive, Mademoiselle Vidal.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give that impression.’
Authié turned to the other woman, who answered.
‘Suzanne Peyre.’
‘What can I do for you, Captain Authié?’ asked Marianne.
‘It’s your sister, Sandrine, I want to talk to. Is she here?’
Again the same flash of alarm, though her voice gave no indication of it.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Do you have any idea how long she might be?’
‘I’m sorry, no.’ She smiled pleasantly.
Authié’s gaze hardened. ‘Where is she, Mademoiselle Vidal?’
Marianne kept her expression in place. ‘I don’t know, I’m afraid. She went out first thing this morning. I didn’t see her leave.’
‘Perhaps your housekeeper might know,’ he said. ‘Fetch her, please.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Suzanne, immediately leaving the room.
Marianne paused. ‘May I ask why you want to talk to my sister?’
‘I believe it was someone called Lucie Ménard and her friend – a Jew – who came to the help of your sister after her unfortunate accident.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You were aware your sister was the victim of a crime committed three weeks ago. Monday the thirteenth of July?’
‘Not a crime, Captain Authié,’ she said calmly. ‘She had an accident. Came off her bike, that’s all.’
‘Mademoiselle Ménard told me she was attacked.’
‘Mademoiselle Ménard is mistaken.’
‘The report at the police station says your sister claimed to have been attacked.’
The reaction was tiny, immediately masked, but it was there all the same.
‘It’s true my sister went to the Commissariat straight away, Captain Authié, but frankly I was cross with her for wasting police time. I believed – and still do – that her injury was the result of an accident.’
Despite himself, Authié was impressed with her self-control. ‘You thought she was making it up?’
‘I think she was muddled after the accident.’
‘So you were not aware there have been several attacks on women in Carcassonne, Mademoiselle Vidal?’
Marianne held his gaze. ‘I was also under the impression that since the victims have all been Jewish, the police were not taking the matter seriously.’
Authié raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you criticising the police, mademoiselle?’
‘An observation, Captain Authié.’
‘You confuse Carcassonne with Paris, Mademoiselle Vidal.’
‘I hope that’s the case, Captain Authié.’
He paused. ‘Your sister did not say anything about her assailant?’
‘She said all sorts of things, which, as I mentioned, I’m afraid I didn’t take seriously. I no longer recall the ins and outs of the conversation. It’s nearly three weeks ago.’
‘She did not mention the name Raoul Pelletier, for example?’
And there it was for the third time, Authié thought, a spark of knowledge.
‘Marieta seems to have slipped out,’ Suzanne Peyre said, appearing in the doorway.
Authié looked from one woman to the other. ‘I appear to be out of luck,’ he said wryly. ‘I shall have to come back later and hope your sister will be back. Or perhaps return to speak to Mademoiselle Ménard. She was inclined to be helpful. She might remember something else.’
He lifted his hat, then strode back into the hallway and out of the house without giving them the chance to respond. Authié crossed the street and turned to look back at the building. Had the girl been sent away, perhaps? It seemed strange that both she and the housekeeper were not at home. He wondered what Suzanne Peyre had been doing to have been away from the room for so long. He was impatient to return to the office to see if there was a file on her too.
He felt a prickling on the back of his neck, certain he was being watched. In the house next door to the Vidals, a curtain dropped back into place, but it was long enough for him to recognise the woman inside. He knew one of his informers lived in the quartier du Palais, but hadn’t realised it was this house. He walked up the steps.
‘Madame Fournier,’ he said, when she answered the door. ‘I wonder if I might prevail upon you?’
TARASCON
E
rik Bauer dabbed at his neck with his handkerchief, the flattering August sun too much for his northern blood. He took off his hat, fanned his face, shifting the still air, then put it back on his head.
Bauer was proud to be a member of the Ahnenerbe. As a boy, he had read Wolfram von Eschenbach’s grail writings and the great Germanic legends, celebrated the music of the
Minnesingers
. Like the Führer himself, Bauer had stood before the Spear of Longinius in its glass case in the Hofburg Museum in Vienna. When the Habsburg Treasures were moved from Austria to Nuremberg after the Anschluss, Bauer had applied to the Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society, under the leadership of Reichsführer Himmler, and finally been accepted. He was one of thousands of scientists and historians all over the world – Egypt, South America, France – seeking artefacts to prove the historic existence of a superior, an Aryan, race and to substantiate its claims. The grail books of the Cathars, the lost treasure taken from the Temple of Solomon after the Sack of Jerusalem, other objects of antiquity said to be hidden within the mountains of the Languedoc. He despised Rahn and had been one of those who’d denounced him for his degeneracy, but he had found the man’s writings compelling all the same. Bauer hoped that if he could find the key, even the Codex itself, then he would come to the attention of those higher in the party.
He was convinced that this particular network of caves between Niaux and Tarascon was not going to yield results. They had been thoroughly excavated before the war with no significant success. Even so, he wished to guard against anyone else gaining access in case he was mistaken. He knew the locals would swarm all over the site as soon as they had gone.
‘Obersturmführer?’
The chief engineer, a stocky, bull-like man, was waiting for orders.
Bauer nodded. ‘
Beginnen Sie
.’
Bauer watched the foreman instruct his men to place the dynamite charges at equal intervals along the opening to the cave, a little distance from the ground. Once set, another man climbed above and placed three along the upper edge of the rock face. In natural rock falls and landslides, there was usually a section where the rock was thinner. Bauer wanted to make sure there were no weak places through which someone could gain access.
The foreman uncoiled the wires that led to the charge box, then carried the device as far away from the opening to the caves as he could.
‘
Ist es bereit?
’ Bauer asked. It’s ready?
The foreman nodded. Bauer and the three other men took cover, then the foreman depressed the handle. The dynamite did its work. An immediate crump, then the force of the explosion snaking through the ground. A moment of suspended silence, then the rumble of rock as the cave entrance began to collapse in upon itself.
Only when the aftershock of white clouds of dust mushroomed up into the hot air did Bauer emerge from his hiding place.
He looked at the entrance, now entirely blocked, then nodded.
‘
Gut gemacht
. You have done well,’ he said. He dabbed the back of his neck again with his damp handkerchief. ‘Tell your men to pack up. Clear everything. We move north tonight.’
CARCASSONNE
M
arianne dropped the last of the false identity papers into the sink. She put a match to them, watched the flames flare and die, then turned on the tap. The kitchen was filled with the stink of damp ash.
‘That’s the lot,’ she said. ‘What a waste.’
Suzanne nodded. Her hands were stained black where she had carried each sodden, pulpy armful outside. There was a small patch of earth beneath the kitchen window where she’d buried the evidence, hidden from the Fournier house by the overhang of the balcony. She went back to the sink and washed her hands, scrubbing at them until the last of the ink and ash was gone.
‘What are you going to do now?’ she said, shaking them dry.
‘Send a telegram to Sandrine to warn her about Authié.’
‘What about Lucie?’
Marianne’s face grew still. ‘I can’t believe she’d do such a thing.’
Suzanne put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t I go and see what she’s got to say? But I’ve got to find Robert Bonnet first and tell him we’ve had to get rid of this lot.’
Marianne sighed. ‘After all your hard work.’
‘Better safe than sorry.’
‘I know. Even so.’
Suzanne leaned forward, gave Marianne a peck on the cheek. ‘Be back as soon as I can.’
Marianne bolted the door after she’d gone, then walked briskly through the house to collect her purse, hat and gloves. The silence seemed to echo around her. When the others first left for Coustaussa, frankly it had been a relief and she’d enjoyed the peace. Liesl was no trouble, but her unhappy presence cast a pall over the house. Sandrine had been the opposite, rushing around to check the post each morning, then going to the library and the cathedral, trying to do too many things at once. Marieta had been withdrawn and anxious. But now she hated the quiet. And every day, she felt more tired. Less able to cope. If it hadn’t been for Suzanne, she would have gone out of her mind with the strain.
A knock on the front door made her jump. For a moment she was tempted to ignore it, then she heard Lucie’s voice.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said in a loud whisper.
‘Talk? Don’t you mean apologise?’ muttered Marianne.
‘Please.’
With a sigh, she opened the door and Lucie stepped inside. Marianne was shocked at her appearance. She looked wan and drawn, with dark roots showing through her corn-coloured hair.
‘Your Captain Authié has just left.’
Lucie’s eyes widened. ‘He’s been here already?’
‘What do you expect?’ she said sharply. ‘You could have at least telephoned to warn us you’d blabbed to the police.’
Lucie flushed. ‘I tried to, but the line was occupied.’
‘You can’t have tried awfully hard.’
Lucie lifted her chin. ‘I’m here now, aren’t I?’
Marianne’s self-control snapped. ‘Whatever were you thinking? Authié’s with the police. Deuxième Bureau more likely than not. How could you tell him anything?’
‘You say that as if I’m supposed to know what it means,’ Lucie said, ‘but I don’t. I don’t care about all that kind of thing. He was civil to me, that’s all I know. He says he can help me find Max.’
‘Help you?’ Marianne said in disbelief. ‘Don’t be so naïve.’
‘Don’t grumble at me, I can’t bear it,’ Lucie said. ‘It was Sandrine who went to the police in the first instance.
She
was the one who made a report, not me. I begged her not to, it’s not my fault.’
Marianne took a deep breath. Tried to get her temper under control, knowing there was a grain of truth in what Lucie said. Knowing she was angry with herself too. Because nearly three weeks had gone by, she’d allowed herself to think the danger had passed.
‘All right,’ she said, holding up her hands. ‘All right, all right.’
‘He knows where Max has been taken,’ Lucie said, her voice threatening to break. ‘I can’t bear not knowing, Marianne. After all these weeks with no news. I couldn’t bear it a moment longer.’
Marianne sighed, then chose her words with care. ‘I understand you’re desperate – and although Suzanne and I have done our best, it’s true we’ve failed to find anything out – but even so, you know better than to tell the authorities anything. It’s why you advised Sandrine against going to the police in the first place.’
‘Well,’ Lucie said, regaining a little of her spirit, ‘Captain Authié said that what happened to Sandrine is connected to the other attacks on women. That’s the only reason he wants to talk to her.’
