Chapter Eleven
Mellow sunlight brightened the dunes pockmarked in places from this morning’s downpour. Even though the rain had passed, the stiff breeze lingered, filling my nose with pungent whiffs of iodine, ozone, and stranded seaweed.
Beneath us, on the seemingly endless strip of beach, a glittering tide was roaring in. On the horizon, however, loomed banks of cloud, their edges gilded, outlined in fire where the storm front was lurking. We were only granted a breather.
“Baguette?” Yvon asked.
With my stomach straining against the waistband of my trousers, the answer came easily. “Urgh. I must have tasted tons of pears, ice cream, and chocolate this afternoon. I’d better swear off food for the next two days.”
We were speaking English. During the Itxassou cookery gig, Yvon had been yelling in his mother tongue, claiming my chocolate sauce was too sweet and the pears too hard, but I wasn’t fazed by bellicose alpha Frenchmen and turned a deaf ear on his ravings.
When the diners rewarded our joint efforts with a stream of compliments, le patron cried on our respective bosoms—especially mine—and sent us home with a bottle of his best champagne and an invitation for a dinner for two.
“Not even if I tell you the baguette serves as a perfect base for the champagne?” Yvon asked.
When I shifted to face him, the picnic blanket under me crackled. British picnic blankets are insulated underneath. They were a must-have in the UK where the weather was a lot more inclement than in France and the population was determined to enjoy summer, whether or not it happened. “You’re not drinking the champagne le patron gave us, are you? It’s not cooled.”
He pressed a slender hand to his chest and sagged onto the blanket with a dramatic eye roll. “ Mon Coeur , how can you even consider I would commit such a sacrilege? No, this is from my own cellar.”
“Whatever you were pressing, it wasn’t your heart, unless it sits on top of your sternum.” I looked down and peeked at my bust, covered in a sage-green fleece jacket. We were both wearing fleeces. The rays might warm my cheeks, but the wind had a bite to it and kept mussing my hair.
“If you insist.” Yvon shrugged and arranged three glasses on a wooden tray.
Three glasses? How was a specter supposed to drink? Fear stabbed into my chest. I was about to meet a ghost. Okay, I faced him before, but somehow this wasn’t quite the same. “Do you think Raoul will make it?”
Yvon ripped a piece off the baguette and chewed. “He’ll try since he’ll be keen to hear Arbadonaro’s story. A story you could’ve told me during our return trip. Don’t tell me I’m repeating myself. I know.”
Nice try. “As already explained, repeatedly too, doing so would have been unfair on our ghostly pal. After that fascinating indiscretion from le patron , you’ve got the edge, anyway. You know where we’re going next. A place you know, correct? Lupiac, was it?”
He grinned. “Won’t confirm since it would be unfair to Raoul .”
The subject of our discussion chose the same instant to shimmer—swim—wobble into view. One instant, I was looking at tufts of beach grass and damp sand. The next moment, a hazy humanoid form superimposed itself onto the scenery. “ Bonsoir. So, you know who I am?”
The voice sounded hollow.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. Those old horror films were spot on, and I was glad our impromptu picnic hadn’t been scheduled for midnight. “ Bonsoir to you too . Yes, consider me to be in the picture. There’s no need to bother with materializing,” I said somewhat mendaciously. “If you can’t make it, I’ll cope. Safer that way, I’d say.” When I scanned the dunes, they seemed to be visitor-free.
Raoul’s head appeared on top of the swirling mists, hair first, followed by the face until I could have counted the laugh lines pulling at the corners of his eyes. “Me, I’m cautious. I check before showing myself like this. After yesterday’s excess, I’m afraid I can’t give you more.”
“Come on, I chose this place for a reason,” Yvon said, also in French. “It’s well-protected. If someone should come, we’ll hear them before they can see us.” He popped the cork with expert hands.
The mists shifted, and Raoul’s disembodied head drifted closer. When he stopped, his face hovered above the edge of the blanket, as if he was propping himself up on one arm. His nostrils twitched, and he closed his eyes. “Ah, champagne . Wonderful aroma. Such a shame, I can’t drink anymore.”
Duh, Yvon explained this before.
“But tell me, I’m dying to know. Have you found the Legrands?” His eyes snapped back open.
“ Mon ami , you’re long gone,” Yvon said.
“Hilarious.” The face floating on the mists glanced at me expectantly. “Come on, Melody, give. What secrets have you unearthed?”
Yvon stopped fiddling with the champagne and regarded me with the same intense expression Raoul wore. Seen close to each other, they didn’t look much alike. Tanned skin, yes, and masses of dark curly hair, but where Raoul displayed a cherubic cheer, Yvon’s features seemed etched with pain, and the tension in his body belied his banter.
Funny, the dead should be more zen than the living. Perhaps it was because, apart from themselves, they had nothing left to lose.
I heaved a deep breath and revealed the fate of the Jewish family.
“Note that Arbadonaro was searching the area around Lupiac,” Yvon said, an instant after I finished.
A hand appeared from among the mist, and Raoul scratched his head. “It’s got to be a coincidence. Still benefits us, no?”
“What does?” I asked.
“That d’Artagnan’s birthplace, the Chateau de Castelmore , is in Lupiac,” he said.
Yvon rose and shaded his face against the rays of the setting sun. On the beach below, the waves were frothing around the bunkers, concrete islands in an upset sea.
From close by, voices rang out. Feet scuffed along the sands.
“Uh, oh,” said Raoul. His face disintegrated. Like the mummy, but minus the sand, he was gone in an instant.
My heart thudded in my chest, and my mouth made a great Sahara impression. His exit had been hair-raising and a tick belated.
Two surfers in black suits clomped past, their boards under their arms. They disappeared behind the dune.
“All clear on the Western front,” Yvon said.
“Har, har. Looks like I’d better keep a low profile,” Raoul’s voice said from somewhere behind the champagne cooler. “Where there are two, there are more, and these morons don’t seem to care about fragile ecosystems.”
“If the dunes are protected, should we be here at all?” I asked.
“Not really,” he said. “For this time, it’ll do, though. Since I’m feeling poorly today, I can’t chase after those two. Any other time, I would create some nifty cross currents to punish them and chuck them off their boards. Will you go to Lupiac tomorrow?”
“I guess so,” Yvon said. “Mel?”
“Sure. Let’s do that,” I said with well-faked indifference, my inner idiot skipping happily. “Though I would suggest we hit the internet beforehand. Just on the off chance there are records of a Louise arriving in 1943.”
“Unlikely, but yes, we need to check.”
“Splendid, everything’s sorted then,” Raoul said. “Hell, I’m fading already. Same time, same place tomorrow? I rely on you, mes amis. Bonne soirée .” A chill eddy stirred the sand, then blew away like so much dust.
“He overdid it yesterday.” A smile tugged at the corners of Yvon’s mouth.
“Raoul did a great job pretending to be alive. He even touched me. If he hadn’t been missing his...if it hadn’t been for the scene I overheard in your garden, I would never have noticed.” Heat flamed into my cheeks. I needed to watch my slippery tongue.
“He’s a great actor. It’s what made him efficient as a double agent. Unfortunately, his horrid lover effed everything up.” Yvon re-joined me on the blanket.
“Please tell me the guy got what he deserved.”
“Tsk, tsk. Life doesn’t work like that. He moved away. For all I know, the louse lived to a ripe old age and was the pillar of whatever community he chose for his home. Louses always do. I strongly suspect our mutual friend to be behind the relocation. I understand it might have been somewhat sudden.”
Laughter tickled my throat and burst through. “Three cheers for Raoul. We must do him proud tomorrow. Oh, you reckon there’ll be time to visit your chateau ?”
He gave me an inscrutable look. “May I ask why?”
“Because I would love to see your family home.” And because I was hoping visiting the place would reassure me Paulette was wrong and Yvon was not lying about his ancestry.
He hugged his knees. “To heck with d’Artagnan. Oh, all right, since it’s you. Don’t expect too much. These days, Castelmore doesn’t look its best.”
From the public footpath came shouts and laughter. An entire army of surfers was on the march.
“Let’s hope they’ve checked their calendars,” he said waspishly. “With the full moon, we’re due a spring tide. Unless it’s the reason why they came in the first place, to get their kicks from those monster waves.”
“In this case, we better arrange to meet Raoul somewhere else next time. If he does his djinn routine in front of a surfer, we’re in trouble.”
“Don’t worry, he’s clever. First, let’s scout for something to tell him.”
We looked at each other. Butterflies swarmed in my stomach. Time flowed on, into eternity.
Until Yvon sighed. “I must work on my menu.”
And I needed to get some writing done. As the butterflies crash-landed, this morning’s anxieties returned with a vengeance. Blast it, things were going the wrong way, despite feeling so right.
I mustered a determined smile. “Same here. Work’s calling. Let’s both have a go at the research and compare notes tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a plan. I suggest we leave earlier, though. How does eight-thirty sound? Lupiac is about ninety minutes from here, but we need to make sure the town hall is open. That’s the most likely place where someone would hide dusty records, though I’m not hopeful. Arbadonaro has a lifetime of searches on us and even he didn’t find her.”
Now he was being defeatist. “Someone will know someone who knows something. Someone always does. You being who you are should count as an advantage.”
“Pull the Batz card, you mean? Oh, I will.”
He jumped up from the blanket and extended his hand. When we touched, a delicious tingle slithered along my arm. He helped me rise, and there we stood, fingers entwined, the sunlight caressing his cheeks, a smile crinkling his eyes.
I caught myself smiling back.
Somehow, the distance between our bodies narrowed. Proximity alert, my warning system shrilled.
“Yoo-hoo, les copains . Have you seen my friends? Orange and green surfboards. Must have passed about ten minutes ago?”
The archetypal surfer gal stood in the dunes, bleached hair pulled into a ponytail, her muscular body clad in a dark blue surf suit, piped in white.
Yvon hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Check near the bunkers.”
She blew him a kiss and dashed off.
In silence, we packed the picnic paraphernalia and returned to our respective homes. He wished me a good night, the wariness back in his expression. A fleeting smile, a wave of his hand, and he was gone.
I sent a mental thank you to the surfer girl. She had saved me from myself. When we went to Lupiac tomorrow, I would have to be more careful. Inland, there weren’t any surfers.
~ * ~
?“ D esolée ,” the woman in the Lupiac registry said, toying with the wire-rimmed glasses dangling over a lanyard on the loud floral pattern of her dress. “Without a family name, you stand little to no chance. Plus, if the person you’re searching for was a Jewish girl in hiding, she was unlikely to have been registered.”
“We know that,” I said.
Floral Pattern wasn’t precisely unhelpful, but she wasn’t making any efforts either.
“We experienced serious issues tracing the girl to this place. It would be such a shame if the trail went cold in your village.” I smiled sweetly.
“It was meant to go cold, Madame. The church records or the library won’t be of any use to you either. The girl wasn’t born here, and none of the priests kept a personal journal,” she finished with relish.
“Are you sure?” Yvon asked.
Floral Pattern gave him a simpering smile. “Unfortunately, Monsieur Batz, people come here to write about your ancestor, and they’re always interested in the records.”
“We’re not seeking information on the fourth musketeer,” I said. “We’re interested in a different time period.”
She did le shrug . “It makes no difference. I suggest you find some other theme for your novel. There’s nothing here for you, Madame.” When the woman tossed me a satisfied smirk, I mentally downgraded unhelpfulness to being bloody minded.
Yvon sought my gaze and inclined his head at the exit, so I melted into the background, leaving him to ooze charm and wring some intel from the blasted bureaucrat. I reckoned the schmooze campaign would take a while and stepped through the entrance until I found myself under the colonnades fronting Lupiac’s town hall.
It looked out on the Place d’Artagnan, complete with a life-sized statue of the famous musketeer on horseback, rapier pointing at the skies. He dripped with moisture since the rain was back in business, a listless drizzle, warm but persistent.
With yesterday’s enthusiasm ebbed away, my mood was darker than the sullen sky.
A healthy whiff of manure wafted in from the fields surrounding the village. The bell in the old church tower bonged. Tires hissed on the wet tarmac, and canned music drifted from the open door of the Bar Tabac . Other than that , the village lay becalmed, waiting for the sun to return.
What a shite day. To kick it off, during our drive from the coast, Yvon had been as communicative as a brick. He had given me monosyllabic answers to my questions and, when I finally gave up, he glowered at the innocent windscreen.
I should be grateful for his standoffishness since it created some much-needed distance. Nor was there any reason his mood swings should reflect on me.
I leaned against a colonnade, its stone dampness seeping into my bones. Volatile like a soufflé, he wasn’t the greatest team player in the world. Who cared? I didn’t have to work with the man. Ours was a brief cooperation to serve our mutual goals.
The argument was sound, but my mood refused to brighten. Moisture that wasn’t rain pricked the inside of my eyelids. I wiped it away with the heel of my hand.
What the heck was wrong with me? Come on, Mel, get a grip on yourself .
The inner pep talk failed to lift my spirits.
From the depths of the building behind me came voices, together with a moldy whiff. Laughter and rapid-fire French. Yvon, working on Floral Pattern. He did it for a reason, but it still grated on my nerves.
Once more, my life had turned into a disaster area. My emotions were all over the place while the novel writing went nowhere, the blog was on hold, and Bruno from Guide Douchevin kept sending me increasingly terse emails about my next assignment.
Instead of doing my job, I was chasing wild geese that had died decades ago and, unlike Raoul, never rose afterward.
A yellow and blue postal van sloshed past and came to a halt in front of the post box. Clunking and rattling ensued while the postman fetched his cargo. More laughter came from behind me. Footsteps, as someone crossed the corridor. A door snicked shut.
I’d reached a dead end. There was no story, no lost family, nothing I could use for my novel.
Paulette would be pissed off.
Let her. Perverse pleasure lurked in that thought.
The pillar hurt my shoulder, so I pushed myself off the stone. Water dripped from the arches and plopped into puddles on the cobbled ground. The postal van drove away.
In its stead, a lime-green Citro?n rolled by and stopped where the van had stood. The passenger door opened, and a lanky man clambered from the vehicle. He hitched up his trousers and checked the times on the post box. Bad luck, he arrived a tad too late.
Hang on, lime green Citro?n?
Adrenaline zapped through my sluggish veins, and I jumped behind the nearest pillar. A quick peep around its corner showed the passenger of the vehicle vaping and talking into a phone. When he glanced in my direction, I shrank back behind my impromptu screen.
Time slipped by while raindrops plopped into the nearest puddle, each mini-explosion measured by my galloping heart.
A car engine fired up. Tires sloshed over the tarmac. I stuck my head outside, in time to see the Citro?n drive away, in the direction we had arrived from earlier.
I stared after the vehicle. Behind me, someone banged out of the door, and I whirled around.
Yvon stood there, his cheeks flushed. “Good news, Mel.”
I released the air from my lungs in a gentle whoosh. The Citro?n could wait until later.
My fingers curling into a gimme gesture, I said, “Okay, let’s hear it. Glad you could get that person to talk.”
“Yes, she was rather cagey, wasn’t she? With a bit of nudging, she remembered something the mayor of Lupiac once mentioned. She even arranged an impromptu appointment with Angélique. Hey presto, we’ve another lead.”
“Who’s Angélique when she’s at home?”
“The mayor.”
“I’m surprised this hamlet even qualifies for one.”
“Three hundred and four souls and growing. Angélique’s grandfather used to be mayor during the war, and he shared his anecdotes. How the community helped to hide Jews from the Germans. It gets better. He seems to have mentioned the orphaned girl more than once.”
“I’m surprised Arbadonaro never discovered this on his trips.”
Yvon’s gaze slid away. “He might have been Résistance , but he’s not a local. Plus, he’s a... Forget it. I’m familiar with the town’s history. They’re proud of it for a reason. I didn’t put two and two together. Anyway, there’s more.”
The truth was playing hide and seek behind his words, but for the moment, I would let it slip. There was a story waiting in the wings after all. “Spill.”
“The mayor said she’ll sniff around on our behalf. I dare say she knows who to ask, but she needs to make sure we would be welcome there.”
“How long is this going to take?”
An eye roll was the only response to my comment. “No idea. Let her get on with it. To think the answer was in front of me the whole time and I never thought of asking. Ah, well. You wanted to visit the chateau, didn’t you?”
Whatever had bugged the man on the way here seemed to have dissipated, which meant I could mention the Citro?n without provoking an outburst. “Uh, you remember the lime-green car from yesterday? I saw it.”
“Where?” The question struck like a snake.
“Right here. Two passengers. One got out while the other made a phone call. The next time I looked, they were returning on the same road we came in on.”
“Did they see you?” His voice was low, urgent.
“Unlikely. I was hiding behind the pillar.”
Yvon stepped under the colonnade and winced as a drop of water found its way into the collar of his rain jacket. He whipped his head first left, then right, sniffing the air like his hounds.
An explanation—any explanation for his weird behavior would be nice. “Yvon?”
“They seem to have left.”
I balled my hands into fists. “Who are they?”
He heaved a deep breath, raised his hands, and dropped them again. “Someone who doesn’t like me and has been hounding me for ages. It might be a coincidence, though.”
“You can’t seriously think so.”
“ Non .”
“I ask you again. Why would they use such a conspicuous car?”
He swung around, his face grim. “Because they want me to notice them. They want me to feel uncomfortable.”
Nope, he didn’t want to explain. Maybe humor would help. “Rats, you must have messed with someone’s dinner.”
Mirth flickered in his beautiful eyes and died again like a doomed flame. “Nothing related to my profession. It’s my family, I’m afraid.”
Finally, an opening. “Someone doesn’t fancy the Batzes? Like the Gitans you mentioned yesterday? I wonder what your lot did wrong to deserve this.”
Yvon regarded the tips of his trainers. He didn’t grace me with a response.
I was a journalist first, and at moments like this, it showed. “You told me your family has been impoverished for quite a while. So, whatever went wrong would date back a while, to the time when the Batzes owned the chateau. Am I on the right track? Though it would be a heck of a long time to bear a grudge.”
“You should write novels.”
“I do. Well, I will be.” If I ever got this blasted manuscript started. “Yvon, what the heck is going on here? Are we in danger? In that case, we had better visit the nearest gendarmerie .”
He recoiled. “What? Oh, no way. At one point, they pestered me a lot, but I stopped them. These days, they’re more of a nuisance. Yet another bunch of zealots with a pet hate they’ve fanned into a mission. This world is full of nutters.”
There was something—a lot he wasn’t telling me. “Once more with feeling. Have you tried involving the police?”
He nodded. “I’m not daft, Mel. The answer is yes. These idiots have a restraining order and aren’t supposed to get close without risking an arrest. Bah, we know how well this works. Now, do you want to visit Castelmore or not?”
His smile was overly bright, and I didn’t like the glitter in his eyes. Fine, so he didn’t want to tell me what was going on. No problem, I would find out for myself.