CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
It began to ease out, like pus from a gangrenous wound, and Rocco listened, rhythmically swinging his leg. The regular movement seemed to calm Didier, keeping him talking as if hypnotised, a metronomic inducer of all his innermost secrets.
‘I knew he was up to something. He spent too much time out on his own at night, walking in the fields near the drop zone. Why would he risk that unless he was looking for something? One night I followed him. I saw him with an oilskin package — like they used for wrapping stuff. He took it out of a ditch, in a drop canister.’
‘Money?’
‘Yes. I watched him counting it.’
‘How much?’
‘I forget.’ Didier shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. Back then, anything was worth having.’
‘Go on.’
‘I said I wanted a cut. He refused at first, then agreed. Knew I’d tell, otherwise. He gave me a wad, said he was heading south to get the escape pipeline out. But the others found out what he’d done and threatened to tell London. He agreed to meet them, to give the money back. But he got in touch with the Nazis instead and told them where the meeting was taking place. He didn’t turn up, of course.’
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘Because they were waiting, weren’t they? The Germans. At the quarry.’ His eyes glittered sharply. Sly. ‘It could only have been him.’
‘Or you.’
‘Me?’ Didier shifted his arm, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. ‘Why the hell would I do that?’
‘Because you argued with one of the men over Elise.’
‘ Elise? ’ Didier looked surprised by the mention of the name. Then a shadow of understanding crossed his face. ‘Christ, is that what that daft bitch Francine told you? She’s not right, that one. Follows me here and then tries to kill me, can you believe that?’
‘You knew?’ Rocco thought back to his talk with Francine. She had clearly thought otherwise.
‘Of course I did — I knew as soon as I first saw her. She looks a lot like her sister. She’s cracked, you know that? I stayed out of her way. Can’t be doing with people like that.’
‘You didn’t feel threatened by her turning up here after all those years?’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘Because it’s impossible to believe, that’s why!’ Rocco felt annoyed by the man’s play-acting. ‘The whole of France to choose from and you two pitch up in the same small village?’
Didier gave a sign of agreement. ‘OK. It was spooky, I grant you. But stranger things have happened. As far as I could tell she didn’t recognise me… never gave a hint. I thought it best to leave it that way.’
‘But you can see how she might have seen things — about her sister and you. And you were the only other survivor.’
‘Yeah, all right. I had a thing for Elise… but I wasn’t that put out just because she wouldn’t play. And it wasn’t me who told the Germans. I turned up early but I smelt them before I got there. You think I wanted to be hunted down by every Resistance gunman in France for betraying the group? No way. The kid’s got it in her twisted mind that it was my fault. Well, it wasn’t — it was Berbier’s.’
Rocco waited for more. It sounded plausible, unless you considered that Didier had probably erased from his mind his own involvement over the years, lumping all the responsibility on the rich, powerful, well-connected Berbier, despoiler of the working masses. He’d no doubt been in awe of the man at first, with his exotic SOE cloak- and-dagger appearance. Maybe he still was.
‘So you had to disappear. But you didn’t lose touch with Berbier, did you? You decided to milk him.’
‘So what? He could afford it. It was only right.’ He shrugged. ‘It was fate. I saw his photo in the papers one day not long after the war
… realised who he was, who he’d been. I watched him making himself richer over the years. Kept in touch, though: a phone call here, a note there — just so he knew I was out there. Then he approached me. Said he’d acquired a place in the country where he wanted to hold parties for business contacts. Fat, rich sickos who liked to live it up away from home. People he wanted to influence. He couldn’t be involved, though: he needed me to run the place, be the fixer.’
The fall guy if anything went wrong, more likely, thought Rocco. Two birds with one stone. ‘He paid you for this service?’
‘Of course he did. Paid me well, too. Couldn’t not, could he? He thought I’d got proof of what he’d done with the Resistance group. I let him believe it, that’s all.’ Didier chuckled proudly, then coughed wetly, clutching at his chest. ‘All I had to do was manage the place, get it cleaned after each session and keep it stocked with stuff.’ He glanced up at Rocco. ‘You’ve seen inside?’
‘Yes. Sleazy as a Montmartre bordello. Where did the girls come from?’
‘His people arranged it. Young, fancy bitches from Paris, mostly, earning money on the side… or rather, on their backs. After a couple of sessions, I started taking notes. On the sly, of course. Big names, some of the people who came down here. Influential. Even a couple of — what do you call them? — civil servants. Grey drones in grey suits who probably couldn’t get it up any other way. Then I realised Berbier was doing the same, only using his driver with one of those movie cameras.’
Rocco nodded. He glanced at the film reel on the floor. It chimed with what the driver had said before he died: Berbier was the controller, using the lodge for his schemes, and Didier was the factotum who knew too much. It was the reason the men had been sent after Didier: a reel was missing. The man had gone too far; become a liability. The danger of the reel getting into the wrong hands had been too great to ignore.
‘He was going to use it for blackmail?’
‘Not for the first time.’ Didier took a deep breath, his chest rattling. ‘You think he got all those business deals because he was good at adding up? He’d got it planned. Or his mother had.’
Rocco pictured the haughty old woman in the Bois de Boulogne, and saw nothing in the image to counter the idea. She was undoubtedly an old snob and social climber, and probably ruthless in steering her son to her idea of greatness. Manoeuvring business and official contacts for advancement would have been as natural to her as breathing, as would keeping him at arm’s length from anything that might rebound on him. Hence the need for a middleman. Didier.
‘She’s a nasty cow,’ Didier continued. ‘I met her a couple of times. She treated me like something she’d picked up on her shoe. But she’s no better: the idea for the lodge was all hers.’
Rocco was no longer surprised. It fitted. Set up a party venue out in the sticks, invite a few ‘friends’ for the weekend to have a good time, send a couple of girls out, lots of booze… and a man with a camera. Most business types relied on a day at the races, theatre tickets, that kind of inducement. But this was a whole lot better. Risky, though, no matter how carefully Berbier kept his distance from the nasty stuff. If it ever went public that he’d used blackmail and sex to further his businesses, it would blow the lid off his empire along with a lot of important names in high places. The repercussions would be enormous.
Massin would have a fit of indecision.
‘Where did his daughter come in?’
Didier hawked and spat on the floor. The gobbet lay there, a sheen of bright red catching the light. He studied it for a moment, then said, ‘I didn’t know who she was at first. She was just a tart sent to join in the fun. One of them, anyway.’ His head dropped and he groaned faintly.
‘When did you find out?’
‘After a couple of visits. She told me who she was… it seemed to please her, like she was rubbing his name in the dirt.’
‘That must have gutted you, seeing her there: the daughter of a man you hated, who’d made it when you hadn’t.’ He said it with flat deliberation, twisting the knife that was already there.
Didier didn’t react. He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. ‘It meant nothing to me. She was just proof of how corrupt he was, him and his kind. In the end, I figured it was something else to bring him down.’
‘When did he find out she was coming here?’
