The Caves of Perigord_ A Novel - Martin Walker [165]
“Oh, my sainted aunt,” heaved Manners. “What a glorious mess!” And collapsed into guffaws again.
“Governments don’t know a thing about it,” wheezed Malrand, weakly. “We never do, you know.” And that set him off again.
“You’re a pair of dreadful crooks,” chortled Clothilde, red-faced, her hair in disarray, but squinting at Malrand and Lespinasse with definite affection.
“You’re all bloody intolerable,” groaned Lydia, holding her stomach.
A door opened and a nervous maid peeped in, her eyes bulging as she took in the scene of mass hysteria. That set them off again, but a little more feebly, and Malrand wiped his eyes and stood up straight and got himself back under control.
“God,” he said. “Haven’t laughed like that in years. There’s no medicine like it.” Lydia found it impossible to gaze at them with anything other than a warm, benevolent grin on her face, and a particularly warm glow when she looked at Manners. What a splendid, genuine laugh he had.
“And what do you plan to do with the reward money, Lespinasse?” Malrand asked, still beaming in pure delight.
“Not collect it, Monsieur le Président. The painting has already been delivered to the Embassy, so it’s in French hands.” That set him off again, and a softer, but still sympathetic detonation from everyone else.
“And now it’s time for that drink,” said Malrand. “Damn the scotch, I need champagne. Lespinasse, pull yourself together, you old crook, and open the bottle.”
They clinked their glasses, still grinning warmly at one another. Malrand turned to Manners. “Was there anything in your father’s papers?”
“No. All I found was an old photograph of a handsome woman in the back of the case where he kept the rock. The name ‘Sybille’ was scrawled on the back.”
“Sybille,” said Malrand, drawing the name out. “Our doctor. A vet, in fact. They had an affair, I recall. A lovely woman. I envied your father. She looked after him when he got wounded in the foot, you know. I suppose that’s when it began. She was killed at Terrasson, while helping the wounded.”
“Did you know about the house?” Lespinasse interjected, turning to Manners.
“What house?”
“Her house, and the vet’s surgery. Sybille’s. She left it to your father in her will. She had no children, no other relatives.”
“That’s how he was able to take the rock back to England,” said Malrand. “He put it there on the night he found it, and then when he came back after the war, he took it back in his car. I never objected. He’d fought for it, in a way. He certainly had a right to it.”
“I had no idea,” Manners stammered, a faraway look in his eye as he began to absorb the depth of the things he had never known about his father. Lydia’s heart went out to him.
“He gave the house and the surgery back to the town and the commune, asking that they be kept as free housing for a vet, in her memory,” Lespinasse said. “Every time he came back here, he’d go over there and just stand in the rooms for a while. After my father’s funeral, I took him over there. When he came out again, he was humming some old Charles Trenet tune and there were tears on his cheeks. She meant a lot to him.”
“To dear Sybille, a French heroine,” said Malrand, raising his glass. “Morte pour la France.”
“She was killed at Terrasson you said, in the last fight against the Das Reich division?” pressed Lydia. There were things she wanted clearing up.
Malrand nodded. “A lot of people were killed at Terrasson.”
“But not this man Marat.”
“No, Marat died at the cave during an argument over some British guns. They were ours, and he tried to steal them for the Communist Party, probably to be used in some future attempt to seize power. There was a shootout and Marat was killed, along with a Russian who was with him, a couple of Spanish Communists, and tragically the American officer who was with us, McPhee.”
Lydia felt her mouth fall literally open. Clothilde