Old Bones

more to it than that. I seem to be missing something.'

'Well, it's nothing but your terrible posture,” Sophie said from force of old habit. “How many times must I tell you? Look at you, scrunched up in your chair like an accordion.'

'Come on, Sophie, let him be,” Ben said. “He's grown up now.'

'I suppose that's true,” she said, eyeing Ray doubtfully.

Ray wiggled uncomfortably and unknotted his legs a little. He handed the locket back to her. “They were close, then?'

'Tremendously close. They lived for each other. But as unlike as can be. Guillaume was very much the way he is now. Domineering, aloof, cold...but Alain—Alain was like the sunshine, like . . . This is ridiculous,” she said with some surprise. “I'm becoming positively maudlin.'

She snapped the locket shut with a no-nonsense click and arranged her stocky body more squarely on the bench. “Now let me get on with it. I want to tell you what happened.” She put the locket in her purse and zipped it up, then took a deep breath with her eyes closed.

Ben had been sitting motionless, his fingertips out to the reluctant swan. He let his hand drift back to Sophie's shoulder and squeezed it. “Honey, I know the story pretty near as well as you do, even if I wasn't there. I can tell him if you want.'

She shook her head. “No, I want to; I'm fine.” She breathed deeply and opened her eyes. She didn't look fine. “Raymond, I think you know that in 1942 the Germans occupied this part of France.'

'Yes. I've always been interested, of course, and I enjoy history anyway, so I've read just about everything I could find about the occupation of Brittany.'

'Yes—” She dropped her chin, raised her eyebrows and studied him quizzically. “History? Do you consider the Second World War history?'

'Well, yes. It was ten years before I was born.'

'Ten years? Good gracious, young man, when were you born?'

'Nineteen-fifty-three.” He spread his hands. “I'm sorry.'

'Nineteen-fifty-three,” she repeated. “Do you mean to say we have college professors who were born in 1953? God help us.'

From her other side Ben smiled across at Ray and nodded. Thank you, he was saying, for shifting her into a more Sophie-like gear. Ray smiled back, pleased with himself.

'Now then,” Sophie said, quite businesslike. “You should know that Alain was also active in the Maquis—the Resistance—even before Guillaume was. He was a sector leader in the area around Ploujean.'

A highly successful leader, she went on to explain; so successful that in January 1942 the SS descended on Ploujean to take control from the regular German army and stamp out local Resistance efforts. With their usual methods they found out about Alain, arrested him, and executed him in the basement of the town hall in Ploujean.

'I'm sorry,” Ray mumbled.

Sophie made a small shrugging movement, staring over his shoulder and up the hill towards the back of the manoir. “They executed five others at the same time. There's a plaque in the town square.'

There was more to tell. The grieving, raging Guillaume somehow managed to get to the SS Obersturmbannfuhrer who had been responsible and assassinate him. The very next day.

'My God,” Ray breathed, “they must have massacred the whole town in retaliation.'

'No, somehow that didn't happen, but of course Guillaume had to flee. He ran off to join the Resistance in the caves near Dol and he was quite a hero, they say. That's how he got those scars, as I'm sure I don't have to tell you. A bombed building collapsed on him, as I understand it. He certainly looked it.'

Guillaume's having been a Resistance hero came as no surprise to Ray. There was a rocklike, Olympian quality about his formidable relative that would have made anything credible. To have heard that he had wound up by Montgomery's side at the very invasion of Normandy—or by Charlemagne's at Roncesvalles—wouldn't have amazed him.

Sophie returned her eyes to his. “Now you know.'

'But I don't understand. What was that you said to Claude Fougeray? How could he have been responsible for Alain's death?'

'Claude,” she said, and made a growling sound. “That worm. How he has the nerve to sit there in that house —!'

'Honey,” Ben said, “I think I'll tell this part of it.” He went on before she could respond. “Claude worked at the mairie in St. Malo during the Occupation. He was a clerk for the mayor—which meant, of course, for the German military administration. Now, a lot of people had jobs like that, and it doesn't necessarily mean—'

'Oh, yes it does,” Sophie said with a snort. “Do you know how he got that job? He informed on a family that was hiding two Jews. That's how he proved his heart was in the right place. The Germans shipped them all off together and then rewarded Claude with his precious job.'

'Now, honey, that's all hearsay; Nobody knows—'

'Everyone knows. It's common knowledge.'

'Well, anyway,” Ben said to Ray with a sigh, “it wasn't that Claude was responsible in any direct way for Alain's death...Now, he wasn't, Sophie; you know that.” He waited for his wife to subside. “What happened, Ray, was that Claude was privy to some inside information. He knew there were going to be some SS arrests two days before they happened. Apparently he even knew Alain's name was on the list, but he...well, he never warned anyone.'