Simon Tolkien - The Inheritance

“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 Pere 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 chateau, 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 chateau. 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.”