The Coldest Case by Martin Walker (mobi reader android txt) 📕

‘What a splendid dog,’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you work with him?’

‘I’m training him to find truffles but he’s a wonderful guard for my geese and chickens.’

‘I had a little terrier who passed away last year and haven’t had the heart to replace him,’ she said, going down on one knee to fondle Balzac’s ears. She was spry for her age. The archivist had told him she was nearly eighty but she looked to be in her sixties. As she rose again and took off her straw hat, he saw she had iron-grey hair, cut short, and watchful brown eyes.

‘Would he like a drink of water?’ she asked, looking down again at Balzac. ‘I was about to make myself some coffee. You’re welcome to join me. It’s cooler on the terrace at the back, and you can tell me why you’re here.’

‘It’s about a man, born in Belleville, called Henri Zeller,’ Bruno began as they sat in the shade of an awning behind the house. Chickens pecked in the small fenced area of land that gave way to a steep and wooded cliff that rose to Carlux on the hilltop. The slope was too steep to see the ruins of the old castle at the heart of the village.

Bruno explained that Henri had failed to appear for his military service because the Mairie sent the army his death certificate in December of ’89. But he was alive and well and running a vineyard in the Bergerac under the name of Bazaine. Bruno was helping to investigate the long-ago murder of a friend of Henri’s that same summer while the two men were camping near St Denis. The dead man, also from Belleville, was called Max Morilland. The Belleville Mairie sent the army a death certificate for him at the same time. They had both grown up in the Lafargue orphanage in Belleville. Could she help?

‘Have you been to Belleville?’ she asked, after studying him for a moment.

‘I walked through it once, from the cemetery of Père Lachaise to the park of the Buttes Chaumont. I was in love at the time and only had eyes for the girl. We failed to find the lamp-post on the Rue de Belleville that marks the spot where Edith Piaf was supposed to have been born.’

She smiled and said, ‘I know you look the part, but it’s hard to believe you really are a municipal policeman.’

‘You could call my friend Montsouris in St Denis, a train driver and a party member. We play tennis together.’

‘I don’t think I’ve believed a word any party member said to me for thirty years. But don’t worry. I read Sud Ouest and I remember seeing a photo of you and your dog when you arrested those IRA people.’

‘So you know I’m genuine. What can you tell me?’

‘The Lafargue orphanage was very small for the number of children it was supposed to house, because most of those registered were never there. We all knew it, even though I wasn’t in the registrations department which managed such matters.’

‘How do you mean, they were never there?’

‘They were invented, just names on lists. I assumed it was a way of getting more money from the central government, welfare payments for non-existent orphans.’

‘Which department did you work in?

‘I was in a section known as “Fraternité”, which dealt with relations with comrades elsewhere, from Italy and Britain to Poland, Cuba and above all East Germany.’

‘Why above all?’ Bruno asked.

‘Many of our senior party cadres had been conscripted to Germany as forced labour during the war and had learned the language. The German comrades were keen to maintain the connection, inviting us to their holiday camps and so on. I went twice, although I was most useful for my English and my Spanish. First time I visited Schwerin, a beautiful place, a lovely castle on a lake and a fine old town. That was in the late seventies. The second time, in ’86, I was invited to Radebeul, near Dresden in the Elbe valley, an area of vineyards. It was sad. They had no corks so used bottle caps instead. Their old barrels were rotting and they couldn’t afford stainless steel vats so they used enamel ones, designed for making beer. Still, the people were very welcoming.’

She smiled. ‘The wine wasn’t bad. And we had to sit through a lot less folk dancing than we did in Cuba and Bulgaria.’

‘Did you make friends?’ Bruno asked, genuinely curious.

‘Yes, there was a French couple from Belleville, Jacques and Sylvie Lefort, who’d emigrated there in the fifties. They taught French and helped run a local orphanage, named for Clara Zetkin, a famous German Communist. She’s buried in the Kremlin wall. We met some of the youngsters and were amazed at how good their French was and how much they knew about France. They would listen to French radio, watch French films and there were up-to-date French papers and magazines in the library.’

‘Did you conclude that these German youngsters were being trained to merge into French life?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t think that was sinister at the time. I just thought it was a marvellous way to educate these young people.’

‘How much of their education did you see?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Did you see anything special that might have been espionage training, in codes, communications, that kind of thing?’

‘There was a lot of gymnastics, judo, cross-country running and hikes – at the time I just thought it was very healthy. But we didn’t sit in on the classes. They could have had espionage training and I wouldn’t have known.’

‘Did you talk politics with the kids?’ Bruno asked.

‘Not really, except bland clichés about the struggle for peace, racism in America, the Vietnam war, that kind of thing. Our meetings with the youngsters were mostly organized and scripted, except when we went off for picnics in the vineyards when we realized they were very well informed about France and French politics. They were bright kids. They clearly saw the difference