The Caves of Perigord_ A Novel - Martin Walker [117]
“Does it say how he died?” she asked flatly.
“No, the Brehmer Division was transferred in late May. Geissler’s final report said he had handed on her file, as a source, to the Gestapo.” He gripped her hand, tightly. “It needn’t be true, Clothilde. Intelligence officers make up sources all the time, just to have something to tell their superiors.”
“So it’s a lie, what they put on the war memorial—‘fusillé par les Allemands’—shot by the Germans. The Resistance records are a lie.”
“No, they’re not. He was killed at Terrasson when the Das Reich division stormed through to open the road to the railhead at Périgueux. The Resistance records are clear, the date, and the place. The body was found, Clothilde. You know that. Your father was shot by German troops, trying to fight them. The war memorial is true.”
“It’s just the rest that is a lie, then,” she shot back. She poured herself another brandy, and pushed the bottle over to Lydia. “Whatever am I going to say to my mother?”
Lydia decided to announce that she was giving up and going back to London when they all met the next morning at Clothilde’s museum at Les Eyzies. Clothilde had drunk her way down the bottle until her head sagged, and Lydia had thrown the two men out and bedded down on the couch, after putting Clothilde to bed and washing up the dishes. She had woken early, made coffee, and felt her spirits steadily droop as the watched the morning mist hang dully over the river. The sky was gray and it looked like rain. She took the small photograph of Manners’s rock from her bag and looked at it reproachfully. What a mess it had caused. She roamed through Clothilde’s bookshelves, pulling out Leroi-Gourhan on Lascaux, and a monograph by Clothilde on bone tools and their uses. Desultorily, she glanced through the pictures, read Clothilde’s conclusion while barely comprehending a word of it, and then turned to a picture book for children about life in the Neolithic age. That was more her level, she told herself glumly.
Even after her shower, there seemed little point in her staying. Malrand’s big new reward would probably get the rock back. Horst was far better at the archive research than she would ever be. Manners was clearly more interested in Horst’s damned old archives than he was in her. And the whole project had become thoroughly depressing. She didn’t even feel so interested in Manners anymore, she told herself, as her hangover thumped steadily behind her eyes. Still, she was a lot better off than Clothilde, who looked like death when she rose, gulped the coffee Lydia had made, and disappeared into the bath for nearly an hour. She emerged, drank more coffee, lit a cigarette, and came out to the terrace to put her arms around Lydia and hug her tightly.
“Thanks for staying. I’m very glad you did.” Smelling marvelous, Clothilde was dressed with her usual dash. She looked as if she had made a miraculous recovery. Lydia wished she could.
“This is the kind of day when I ought to go to Paris and buy myself a new pair of shoes,” Clothilde said. “You look as though you could use the same therapy.”
“I’m not sure why I’m still here,” said Lydia. “The whole thing has become very upsetting. For you, for Horst, and I’m feeling wretched. I think I’ll go back to London.”
“And leave your handsome major to me?” laughed Clothilde. “Don’t be silly. These things that happened in the war happened to other people, not to us. They lived in an impossible time and had to do impossible things. We live in a time of possibilities. There are things we can do, people we can interview now we know so much more. There are geological maps we can look at, places to be searched on the ground. We can find this cave, Lydia, and teach Malrand a lesson.”
“Where on earth do you get your confidence?”
“From you. Last night was a disaster for me, and you rolled up your