The Inheritance (42 page)

But the curé had said she was dead. And yet there was no death certificate. She hadn’t just died—she’d disappeared into thin air. Unless that was deliberate. What if all record of her had been removed so that she could grow up invisible, biding her time until she was ready to revenge herself on John Cade, who had killed her father and mother in cold blood? What if the elusive Frenchman in the Mercedes was her accomplice, waiting by the telephone box outside Moreton Manor in case he was needed on that Friday night back in June when Cade had been shot through the head? Executed with a single bullet.

And who had been inside the manor house for eighteen months before that night, learning how everything worked, preparing for the appointed day when Cade would get his just deserts? Sasha Vigne. And it was Sasha who had run away the day before. She’d done that because she had something to hide, and she was still here somewhere. Trave was sure of it. Gone to ground in one of these little towns or villages, waiting for Stephen Cade to die and Trave to go home. Because with Stephen’s execution, her revenge would be complete. Father and son would have paid for the murder of her own mother and father. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Old Testament justice.

A car horn sounded suddenly close behind Trave, shattering the peace of the day. He had unconsciously drifted into the middle of the road while he built his theories up like castles in the winter air, and now he had to step quickly back onto the verge to let a builder’s truck go by. For a moment he thought it was the same white van in which Sasha and her friend had accelerated away from Marjean Church the day before, but he soon realised his mistake. This truck was far bigger. The one yesterday had looked like a very run-down vehicle. And the frightened driver hadn’t been Trave’s idea of a cold-blooded conspirator who drove a Mercedes round the English countryside,
plotting the murder of an Oxford University professor. No, he wasn’t Mr. Noirtier, and Sasha was probably not the Rocards’ daughter either. Because that girl was almost certainly dead. Burnt to death in her family home in the late summer of 1944, just like the curé had said.

Whatever happened, this wild-goose chase would have to come to an end soon. He’d told Clayton that he’d be back in England by Monday evening, and Trave intended to keep to that. He’d see the policeman, Laroche, in the morning, and after that he could do no more. Enough was enough. Turning back toward Moirtier-sur-Bagne, Trave realised with a start that the sun had almost set, and he had gone much farther down the road than he had intended. The temperature was colder now, and he would have to hurry if he was going to get back to his hotel before dark. He shivered, pulling his inadequate coat around him, and inside he felt the onset of a black despair. He’d been in France for almost a week now, and he’d accomplished nothing except to fritter away what little time was left before Stephen’s neck was broken. He cursed and swore, and his angry words made little volleys of white smoke in the thin, cold air, until he finally desisted, realising what a comical figure he must seem, a middle-aged man with unkempt hair and crumpled clothes scurrying through the deserted French countryside on a Sunday evening, swearing in English at nobody at all.

Marcel Laroche was an imposing figure. He was six foot four and carried himself militarily erect even though he was in his late fifties. But it was more than sheer physical size that gave him such a commanding presence. He had fought with the Free French in North Africa during the first years of the war and had then been parachuted into northern France to help the Resistance around Caen in the preparation for D-day. He had seen things that others hadn’t, and his wartime experiences seemed to have given his character an unusual depth, which Trave found oddly attractive.

He was expecting Trave, and as soon as the Englishman came through the door of the police station, Laroche picked up his hat and coat, clapped his subordinate on the shoulder, and took Trave across to the café on the other side of the square where they sat drinking hot black coffee by the open window.

Laroche seemed genuinely touched when Trave asked after the health of his sister in Lille. “She’s dying,” he said simply. “But we don’t discuss it. And she won’t give in, which makes it harder. I hope for her sake that it will end soon. But you’re not here to talk about me, Inspector,” he added with a smile. “My deputy told me that you’re interested in the Rocards.”

“Yes. A young man in England says that his father killed them, not the Germans.”

“Well, that’s simply not true,” said Laroche, surprised. “The Nazis did it. Everyone knows that. The British just didn’t get to Marjean in time to stop them. That’s all they did wrong.”

“Were you here when it happened?” asked Trave.

“No. My unit didn’t come this way. We were with the Americans, farther south. But I came back here after the war, and obviously I heard about what had happened. In detail. There were German bullets in the bodies.”

“What about the Rocards’ little girl? What about her body?”

“That was different. She was burnt in the fire at the house. The housekeeper was in there too, and they both died. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“There’s no death certificate for the girl in Rouen,” said Trave baldly. “I checked.”

“Well, I can’t explain that. Except that it was near the end of the war, and a lot of documents went missing everywhere. It couldn’t be helped.”

“People disappeared.”

“Yes. There was chaos for a while, particularly around here. It was more stable in the south, in Vichy, where there was a handover of government. We didn’t have that in the North.”

“This boy in England is going to be executed on Wednesday for killing his father,” said Trave. “And I don’t think he did it. In fact, I’m sure he didn’t. I think his father’s death has got something to do with what happened here in 1944. I don’t know if it was a survivor or a relative of someone who got killed, but whoever it is murdered this boy’s father, and I need to find him. Or her. Before it’s too late.”

“Or her,” said Laroche, repeating Trave’s words. “You’re talking about the girl, aren’t you? The Rocards’ daughter.”

“Yes, I’m interested in her. There’s a woman who was in the house when
this boy’s father was murdered. And she was at Marjean Church the day before yesterday.”

“You think she might be the girl?”

“Maybe.”

“What’s her name?”

“Sasha Vigne.”

“I’ve never heard of her,” said Laroche, shrugging his shoulders.

“But you know something about the girl, don’t you?” said Trave. He had noticed an alertness in the Frenchman ever since he first mentioned the Rocards’ daughter, as if Laroche was keeping something back all the while that he was insisting that she had died in the fire.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said. “It was about three or four years after the end of the war. I can’t be sure of the date. A young man came into the police station. He can’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Called himself Paul Martin and said that he was originally from around here but had moved away when he was small. I found out afterward he was telling the truth about that. His uncle was old Père Martin, who used to be the priest of Marjean. He died a couple of years ago. He was a good man.

“Anyway, the boy claimed to be a friend of Madame Rocard, who was killed by the Nazis. Said the little girl had survived the massacre at the château, but she was too scared to come forward unless we guaranteed her safety.”

“From whom?”

“From the people who’d killed her parents. Paul said that she’d told him three English soldiers had done it. That’s why I looked at you the way I did when you said the same thing a minute ago. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone say that.”

“Did you believe him?”

“No, I didn’t. I thought he was a gold digger. The Rocards had left no will and no relatives, and so their house went to the state. That’s the way the law works in this country. You’ve seen the château. It’s a ruin. But there’s the land it’s built on. There would still have been a financial incentive for pretending to be the Rocards’ daughter.”

“So what did you do?”

“I told him that I couldn’t help him. Not unless the girl came into the
station, and I could check out who she was. And that was the last I ever heard of Paul Martin. I don’t know what became of him.”

“He fell in love with an actress,” said Trave softly. “One last question, Inspector. Do you happen to know the first name of the Rocards’ daughter?”

“Marie,” said Laroche without hesitation. “She was called Marie Rocard. And may she rest in peace.”

Trave got up quickly and shook his companion’s hand.

“You’ve been very helpful,” he said. “More helpful than you can know. Can I use your telephone?”

Luck was on Trave’s side. Clayton was in his office and answered almost immediately.

“Put out an alert,” said Trave. “For the arrest of Mary Martin and a man calling himself Paul Noirtier, although he’s probably changed his name by now. There’s a photograph of her on the file that you can use. You’ll have to use the locksmith’s description for him. Not that it’s much good. They’re both likely to be armed and they’re very dangerous.”

“Why Mary Martin?” asked Adam, sounding perplexed at the other end of the line. “I thought you said it was Sasha Vigne whom you’d seen in Marjean.”

“It was. But I got it wrong about her. It’s Mary Martin we’re after. She’s the Rocards’ daughter and she planned everything. From start to finish. With the help of this man Paul. It would’ve been her in the Mercedes when he went in to get the keys from the locksmith in Reading.”

“What if we don’t find her?”

“Then Swift’ll have to have another go at the home secretary tomorrow. You better call him now and fill him in on what’s happened. Maybe Swift can get the old bastard to grant a stay, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. I’ve got enough to convince myself that it’s her and not Stephen who killed John Cade. But a right-wing politician who doesn’t want to know? I’m not so sure. We have to find her, Adam.”

“All right. I’ll get on to it,” said Clayton, sounding nervous. “Where are you now, Bill?”

“I’m still in France. But I’m flying back this afternoon. And then I’m going straight home. I don’t know why, but I’m dead beat, and I need to get
some rest. I’m hardly a more likely candidate to find our lady than the entire British police force. It’s wait-and-hope time now, Adam.”

“Somebody called asking for you at lunchtime,” said Clayton. “Sounded foreign. I said you were getting back today.” But he didn’t go on. The dull, unchanging tone on the other end of the line made him realise that Trave had already hung up, and Clayton had no number to call him back on.

The aeroplane was delayed leaving Paris, but Trave still got back into London by early evening, and from there he took the train back to Oxford and picked up his car at the station. He had told Clayton the truth about being dead tired. He couldn’t remember when he had last felt so exhausted. It must be the stress, he thought, as he drove home, because the journey had not been that difficult. He was thinking no further ahead than a bath and change of clothes. Mary Martin still had to be found, but Trave remained buoyed by what he had discovered in the morning, and he had a strange feeling that the future would take care of itself.

As he turned the key in the door, he thought of how he had found Silas standing like an apparition under the streetlight nine days earlier and how he had resolved that evening to go to France and find things out for himself. Well, he had done that, and now he was home again. Home, sweet home. In the hallway Trave put out his hand to switch on the lights and felt instead a cold hand on his wrist and the muzzle of a gun thrust up against his heart.

“Hello, Inspector,” said a voice that he recognised from a long time ago. “We’ve been expecting you.”

On that same Monday morning that Trave sat down with Inspector Laroche to drink coffee by the front window of the Claire Fontaine Hotel in Moirtier-sur-Bagne, Stephen Cade was led across the exercise yard of Wandsworth Prison to the visits hall, where Mary Martin was waiting for him.

The warders were quiet, almost respectful, now that Stephen’s execution date was so close, and he was put in a special room off the main hall with just one prison officer sitting on a chair in the corner to ensure that nothing was passed to or from the condemned man.

Stephen had been up all night, and there were rings of tiredness around his unnaturally bright blue eyes. He was moving all the time, squirming in his seat, and he talked in a rush, jumping haphazardly from subject to subject. Anything to fill the silence.

“Swift came to see me on Friday,” he said. “Told me about the reprieve, or lack of one. He says it’s because they want to make an example of me. Show the youth of this country what happens if you shoot people. And I’m just what they want, apparently. Tailor-made for their requirements. A member of the privileged classes, born with a silver spoon in my mouth. The idea being that if someone like me ends up dangling from the end of a rope, then nobody can expect to get away with using a gun. I’m the government’s
Christmas message to the criminal classes, Mary. Guaranteed front-page material.”

Stephen laughed bitterly, and his anger beat against his old girlfriend, forcing her away from him, up against the back of her ugly wooden chair. In truth she looked little better than Stephen. Her nails were bitten to the quick and the tightness of her facial muscles showed the strain she was under as she fought to keep hold of her usual composure. All the day before Paul had tried to make her stay away from the prison, but she’d insisted on coming. Stephen had a right to know what they had done to him, she’d said; he had the right to an explanation, but now that she was here the words wouldn’t come, and every passing minute made it more difficult to find a way to begin.