Cold Winter in Bordeaux by Allan Massie Read Free Book Online

off.’
    ‘You’re either an idiot or think I’m one,’ Lannes said. ‘You’ve no happy memories of our cells? Well, you’re going to find yourself in one again very soon. Let me make things clear. I have evidence that Madame Peniel – what did you call her? Gabrielle, wasn’t it? – was engaged in procuring underage girls for men who like that sort of thing, and now that I’ve met you and recognised you I’m inclined to think I’ve reason to believe you were her accomplice. Enough reason to book you. So that’s just what I’m going to do unless you explain yourself.’
    He lit a cigarette and looked the old man in the face. It was quite without expression. Then he licked his lips again.
    ‘You’re being foolish, superintendent,’ he said. ‘Do you think I would have called you if I didn’t have protection? All I will say is this: I’m a patriot, whatever you think you know of me in the years before the war. My poor Gabrielle was a patriot too. Yes, I don’t deny that she was engaged in the activities you speak of. But who do you think were her clients? Meanwhile I’ve a letter for you.’
    He pulled it out of his inside breast pocket, and got stiffly to his feet. He lifted his glass of Vichy water, and spat into it.
    ‘I’ve another reason to dislike you, superintendent, but I’ll say nothing of that. Some day I’ll want something from you and you’ll give it me, I assure you. Meanwhile, as I say, I’m protected. I’m not going to see the inside of your cell again. You may be certain of that, believe me. Now read your letter and do as you’re told.’
    Lannes watched him moving with small steps out of the café. He moved only from the knees, as if his thighs were tied together.
    It was a cheap envelope, greyish paper, such as some cafés supply to their clients. He was reluctant to open it. To have that wretch proclaiming himself a patriot and speaking of the protection he enjoyed – it was disgusting – disgusting and, he had to admit, disquieting. He ran his fingers over the envelope. There was something stiff there, as it might be a photograph. And which sort of patriotism had the old man boasted of? Edmond de Grimaud was a patriot – so was Sigi – to their minds, anyway. And the Resistance group who had set off an explosion which derailed a train near Bergerac, killing two elderly women, because they had made a mistake and their device was intended for a goods train, not a passenger one – they were patriots too, of course they were. Patriotism was a licence to lie, a licence to kill, a licence for murder.
    He slipped his thumb under the flap of the envelope. Two snapshots and a sheet of the same cheap grey paper. The first photograph was of himself, sitting at a café table with Léon and smiling at the boy; the second showed Léon with Schussmann, the German liaison officer. The typewritten message was brief: I need to see you. You need to see me. So stay where you are. Or these photographs go to the Boches .
    Lannes knew he was trapped. The cards had fallen badly. The photographs were compromising. It was true that Kordlinger, who had taken over as liaison officer after Schussmann shot himself, had managed to arrange his transfer only a couple of months after Lannes had been supplied with information that gave him a hold over the German, but there was no reason to suppose, or hope, that his successor would no longer be interested in Schussmann’s case. It was the spook who called himself Félix who had used Léon as bait to catch the sentimental fool, and Lannes had no doubt that it was Félix whom he was now instructed to wait for.
    Who do you think her clients were, the old man had asked, with a note of contempt or perhaps mockery in his voice. The implication was clear. Clear and disturbing. Not the Boches – that was too much to expect – but men of position, what they had become accustomed to recognise as untouchables. Again he thought of the advocate Labiche with his