They found the antique shop on the hill as the road curved out of St Seine l’Abbaye. It lay against the rising ground, a whitewashed building with a long sloping roof that seemed on the point of falling in. Outside there were old cartwheels, rusting ploughshares, a sedan chair in a state of complete disrepair, prams and ancient barrows.
‘It has everything,’ Darcy said, ‘but technicolour.’
As Pel pushed his way nervously inside the dark interior he found himself surrounded by Second Empire vases, ancient Norman cupboards and bedheads far too vast for any modern house, acres of statuettes, chairs, settees with the springs bursting out of them, heroic pictures of men and women, and statues of Napoleon by the thousand.
The old woman who appeared from the middle of the debris looked like a witch. She had on the remains of a dress which had once been good, but was now threadbare and faded. She peered through a pair of spectacles whose lenses had so many thumb marks on them they were virtually opaque and would have presented a problem to any fingerprint department.
‘You don’t look well,’ she said at once to Pel.
Pel recoiled. It was always one of his horrors that he was about to drop dead, and to be told he didn’t look well was enough to put him off his stroke immediately.
‘I’ll have to give you something for it,’ she said. ‘What are you after? A cheap bed because your son’s got to get married and can’t afford to furnish his flat? A chair? A table? Perhaps you’ve bought a place in the country and need to furnish it cheaply?’ She peered again at Pel. ‘Yes, you need something,’ she said. ‘And I’ve got just the thing to put you right.’
Pel was clearly in retreat and Darcy joined in hurriedly. ‘You used to keep the Hostellerie des Trois Mousquetaires near Orgny,’ he said.
She peered at them over her spectacles – doubtless, Pel thought, because she couldn’t see through them. ‘Yes, I did,’ she said. ‘And I kept it well, too. I was younger in those days, of course. I gave it up after the war.’
‘Do you remember a woman called Dominique Louhalle?’ Pel asked.
The old woman stared at him, her eyebrows lifting, as if he’d conjured up a ghost.
‘I’ve not heard that name for thirty years,’ she said. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘We have reason to suspect that the body found at Bussy-la-Fontaine is somehow connected with the names on the calvary,’ he said. ‘We’re checking up on them.’
‘I see.’ She nodded. ‘I know the calvary. I was there when they dedicated it. Because of Dominique.’ She leaned towards Darcy. ‘Are you sure your friend’s quite well?’
‘Tough as old boots,’ Darcy said cheerfully. ‘They’d pass him for jet fighters.’
‘Oh!’ The old woman took another look at Pel, obviously unconvinced.
‘We’ve contacted everybody still alive who’s related to the victims or remembers them,’ Darcy went on. ‘But Dominique Louhalle didn’t have any relatives from round here.’
‘No.’ Madame Foing tore her eyes from Pel’s face. ‘She was from Marseilles way. And she looked it too. Not beautiful, but there was something about her vitality, je ne sais quoi. Dark and sturdy with jet-black eyes and thick dark hair. Strong back and a quick temper. There was nothing she was afraid of. Not even me. She wasn’t always easy to handle.’
‘Why not?’ Pel asked.
‘She answered back. But she was so good at her job I accepted it. She cooked for me. She was really only a child but she’d been well taught. She just had strong feelings about things and didn’t hesitate to make them clear. She kept the kitchen staff in good order too.’
‘How?’
‘She hit them.’
‘What with?’
‘Her hands. They were big hands.’
‘What about the war?’
The old woman gave them an arch look. ‘She was rather a naughty girl,’ she said.
‘In what way?’
‘She liked men. That girl’s eyes turned a few heads in her time, believe me.’ There was a wheezy cackle. ‘But never as many as her behind. She got herself in the family way. I told her she could stay where she was until her man came home to marry her. Perhaps he never intended to, but anyway he never did.’
‘So I heard,’ Pel said. ‘What happened then?’
‘She was heartbroken for a while, then she took the child to relatives in the south somewhere, and came back to work for me. Because she wanted to hit back at the Germans. They hadn’t occupied the southern half of the country at that time and she wanted her revenge. And that’s what she got. She went to war.’
‘She was brave, I understand.’
‘She terrified me.’
‘Did the child ever turn up again?’
‘I never heard of it.’
‘Do you have a photograph of her?’
‘I had but –’ She turned and waved a hand vaguely at the heaps of old furniture behind her. They knew exactly what she meant. It was there somewhere, under the debris, but the chances of ever finding it were negligible.
‘A pity,’ Pel said. ‘It might have helped. Is that all you know about her, Madame?’
‘There’s nothing else to tell.’ The old woman shrugged. ‘She came into my life like a rocket and went out of it the same way. Despite her faults, I admired her very much – especially later.’ She peered again at Pel. ‘I’m sure you’re not well, you know. Let me give you a little dose for it.’
Pel looked at Darcy in alarm as she began to dig into a cupboard.
‘It’ll probably turn you into a frog,’ Darcy whispered.
The old woman straightened up with a dirty glass and a bottle of wine. Into the glass she poured a little of the wine, then added a few drops of a yellowish liquid from a medicine bottle.
Trying not to breathe in, Pel swallowed the drink. The old woman smiled.
‘It’s also good for croup and worms,’ she said. ‘You haven’t got those by any chance, have you?’
Pel spent the rest of the journey to the city in a state of extreme indignation and nausea, munching bismuth tablets as if he were a drug addict.
They called at a bar for a café-fine but they didn’t serve coffee decaffeinated and they also seemed to be saving fuel, so that it was as cold as the North Pole.
‘We’d better get on,’ Pel decided hurriedly. ‘We’ll call on Grandcamp on the way.’
Maximilien Grandcamp’s travel bureau was by the Porte Guillaume near the station. It was big and thriving, and Grandcamp, a plump red-faced man who looked as though he made a habit of living well, looked prosperous, confident and cheerful, in complete contrast to Madame Duval and Madame Vallois-Dot.
‘I doubt if I’ve ever stopped to think about my father,’ he admitted. ‘I never really knew him and I just remember that suddenly I hadn’t got one. One night he went out, I remember, and never came back. But I don’t think it bothered me much after a while. I was too young for it to have much impact. I went to the funeral, of course, and saw all the red, white and blue ribbons. The Germans were there, I remember. That’s about all.’
Pel was silent a moment. ‘Georges Vallois-Dot,’ he said. ‘How well did you know him?’
Grandcamp thought for a moment then smiled. ‘Not very well. He’s dead now, isn’t he? Am I being interrogated because of that?’
Pel didn’t answer the question. ‘How did he regard the Germans? Do you know?’
‘Vallois-Dot? He hated them.’
‘His wife said he never showed any signs of dislike, that he’d forgotten everything that happened.’
Grandcamp pulled a face. ‘A man would in front of his wife, wouldn’t he? But you have to remember I was at school with him. He hadn’t forgotten them then.’ He frowned. ‘But he was a quiet chap – the sort who didn’t say much. I think he detested his job –’ he smiled ‘ – I don’t think he thought much of his wife, either, come to that, but I imagine he never let her know. He wasn’t the type.’
‘Do you have any feelings about the Germans?’ Pel asked. ‘After all, they shot your father.’
Grandcamp shrugged. He could see no point. After all, the Louhalle Group his father had been with had killed a lot of Germans, and in any case it was too many years since for him to feel much.
There was a long pause. A traffic snarl-up had formed round the stone archway outside and the hooting of horns drowned the ringing of telephones and the chattering of the girl assistants in the office. A policeman stalked past the window, hatred in his eyes behind the dark glasses he wore, picked his way through the jammed cars and started pointing, blowing his whistle and waving his baton. Intimidated, the traffic began to move at once.
Pel watched, quietly approving. He looked at Grandcamp. ‘Ever heard of Heinz Geistardt?’ he asked.
Grandcamp swung round in his chair. ‘Should I have?’
‘He was the man who had your father shot.’
Grandcamp frowned then shrugged again. ‘I’d rather forget it,’ be insisted stubbornly.
He’d always had it drilled into him by his mother, he said, that he should never forget but as he’d grown older there had been a different feeling and he’d preferred to let the matter drop.
Pel nodded agreement. ‘Know anybody who would know Geistardt?’ he asked.
Grandcamp shrugged. ‘There was a woman, I heard. I don’t know where she lived. But my mother was always talking about her. She said he had a woman somewhere.’
‘A Frenchwoman?’
‘Yes. Only a kid, I believe. Eighteen or nineteen. My mother detested the very thought of her. It always seemed to me, though, that she should have been pitied. I expect, with France as it was then, the Germans were the only people who had any money. Patriotism’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Some people can endure all sorts of horrors for it. To others it doesn’t mean a thing.’
At the Hôtel de Police everybody had gone home but Nosjean, who was in a state of extreme agitation.
‘The old man’s bolted,’ he said.
‘What old man?’ Pel asked.
‘Bique à Poux.’
Pel was unmoved. ‘Well, there’s only one place he’ll bolt to,’ he said. ‘His hideout. You’d better look there.’
In fact, they didn’t have to look even that far because as they talked, the desk called to say the hospital had telephoned that Bique à Poux was back.
‘Voluntarily?’ Pel asked.
‘Not likely. He’s got a black eye and a cut lip.’
‘Who brought him in?’
‘Sergeant Massu, from Orgny. He found him leaving the city. He was on his way in to Traffic.’
‘Go and see him, Nosjean,’ Pel snapped. ‘And while you’re at it, inform Sergeant Massu that I’d like to see him. No sergeant from a sub-station’s going to take it into his head to beat up one of my witnesses.’
As Nosjean vanished, Pel sat down at his desk and pulled a notebook forward.
‘How do you feel, Chief?’ Darcy asked.
‘All right,’ Pel said.
‘How about your head? No little bumps growing at the front?’
‘Little bumps?’
‘Horns. The medicine.’
Pel glared, but to his surprise he realised that his incipient cold seemed not only to be better but that he also felt extraordinarily fit.
As Darcy vanished, he stared at his notes. Things were beginning to grow more clear to him. Whoever had shot the man at the calvary seemed to have shot him because he was a German and responsible for the deaths of the people whose names appeared on the shrine. So who was the murderer? Not Vallois-Dot, because he was dead. And Madame Duval was eaten with bitterness and didn’t seem the type to go in for killing – whatever that meant – while Grandcamp claimed indifference. But Vallois-Dot had clearly been involved. Had he panicked, hoping that, because Geistardt was a wanted Nazi, the police would understand, and because of this had been killed in his turn to quieten him?
It was worth following up. Picking up the telephone, Pel called the police department at Grenoble and asked to speak to someone who could remember what had happened on the Vercors massif. It took some time because they were all too young, but in the end they unearthed a man working in Records who’d retired and was now employed as a clerk. He had it firmly in his mind.
‘The people of Grenoble won’t forget that for generations,’ he said.
The Maquis had set themselves up in the hills. They had decided that since the invasion had started it was time to make a move. They had hung out flags and sung the Marseillaise, and for days they’d thought they could defy the Germans. But in the end the Germans had sent in gliders and armour, and then the SS and the Gestapo had gone to work. Men had been shot and tortured. One woman had been raped seventeen times with a doctor holding her pulse. Another, a Maquis officer, had been disembowelled and left to die with her intestines wound round her neck.
‘It was as bad as Oradour,’ the ex-policeman said. ‘That was slaughter. This was deliberate torture.’
‘Who was responsible?’
‘Nobody ever knew. We thought a man called Geistardt was involved, but when he was brought to trial after the war, they couldn’t make the charges stick. He got a seven-year sentence, cut to four for good behaviour. The crimes he’d been charged with weren’t major ones and when more evidence turned up later he’d served his sentence and disappeared.’
Pel was thoughtful as he replaced the telephone. While he was staring at his blotter, Darcy appeared.
‘The German Ministry of Justice in Bonn have been on the phone,’ he said. ‘The Commission they set up in Ludwigsberg for the investigation and prosecution of Nazi crimes still want Heinz Geistardt. Despite the fact that he got away with it at the war crimes trial, to them he’s still a murderer.’
Pel was silent for a moment then he pushed the papers on his desk around. ‘If it was Geistardt at the calvary,’ he said, ‘what was he doing on the Butte-Avelan? Was he hiding from the Jews? After all, they didn’t hesitate to snatch up Eichmann and sentence him to death.’
‘Perhaps he was just here on holiday,’ Darcy suggested.
‘Here?’ Pel said. ‘Where there are no resorts and there are men who’d give their right arms to meet him again?’
‘Perhaps he didn’t consider what he’d done serious,’ Darcy suggested. ‘At Nuremburg they admitted shootings without trial without turning a hair. It didn’t even seem strange to them. They’d been ordered to do so. That was sufficient. They’d just obeyed orders.’
‘But they didn’t protest either,’ Pel said. ‘Do the Germans know where Geistardt is?’
‘He was last heard of in Switzerland,’ Darcy pointed out. ‘But he’s since disappeared. It’s thought to Argentina.’
Pel frowned. ‘Or to Burgundy,’ he said.