Original Sin (57 page)

The second survivor from the same camp wrote of the same horrors, although, more graphically, but had no memory of a young mother or her twins.

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Daniel was turning the papers as if in a trance. He knew now where the journey was leading him and here at last was the proof: a letter written by a Marie-Louise Robert from Quebec. It was handwritten in French with a typed translation attached.

My name is Marie-Louise Robert and I am a Canadian citizen, the widow of Emile Edouard Robert, a French-Canadian. I met him and married him in Canada in 1958. He died two years ago. I was born in 1928 so was fourteen in 1942. I lived with my widowed mother and grandfather on his small farm on the PuydeD6me area of France, outside Aubire which is just southeast of Clermont-Ferrand. Sophie and the twins came to us in April i94. It is difficult now that I am old to remember how much I knew at the time and how much I learned afterwards. I was an inquisitive girl and resented being kept out of the adults' concerns and treated as if I were a child, too immature to be trusted. I was not told at the time that Sophie and the children were Jews but I learned that later. There were many people and organizations in France at that time which helped Jews at great risk to themselves, and Sophie and the twins were sent to my parents by a Christian organization of this kind. I never knew its name. At the time I was told she was just a friend of the family who had come to us to be safe from bombing. My uncle Pascal worked for Monsieur Jean-Philippe Etienne at his publishing and printing firm in Clermont-Ferrand. I think I did know at the time that Pascal was part of the Resistance, but I'm not sure that I knew that Monsieur Etienne was head of the organization. It was in July 942 that the police came to take Sophie and the twins away. As soon as they arrived my mother told me to get out of the house and stay in the barn till she called me. I went to the barn but I crept back and listened. I could hear screaming and the children crying. Then I heard a car and a van being driven away. When I went back into the house my mother was crying too, but wouldn't tell me what had happened. That night Pascal came to the house and I crept down the stairs to listen. My mother was angry with him, but he said he hadn't betrayed Sophie or the twins, that he wouldn't have put my mother and grandfather in danger, that it must have been Monsieur Etienne. I forgot to say that it was Pascal who forged

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the false papers for Sophie and the twins. That was his job in the Resistance, although I am not sure whether I knew this at the time. He told my mother to do nothing, to say nothing. There were reasons for these things. However, my mother did go to see Monsieur Etienne the next day, and when she came back she spoke to my grandfather. I don't think that they cared then whether I heard or not. I was sitting quietly reading in the room when they spoke. She said to my grandfather that Monsieur Etienne had' admitted that he had betrayed Sophie to the authorities, but that it had been necessary. It was because he was trusted and his friendship valued that she would not be punished for harbouring Jews. It was thanks to his relationship with the Germans that Pascal had not been deported as slave labour. He had asked my mother what was more important to her: the honour of France, the safety of her family or three Jews. Afterwards no one ever spoke about Sophie and the twins. It was as if they hadn't existed. If I asked about them, my mother would just say, It is finished. It is over.The money from the organization kept coming, although it was not very much, and my grandfather said that we should keep it. We were very poor at the time. I think someone did write to enquire about Sophie eighteen months after she and the children were taken away, but my mother wrote back that the authorities were becoming suspicious and that Sophie had left and gone to friends at Lyons and she didn't know the address. Then the money stopped. I am the only member of my family left. My grandfather died in 946 and my mother of cancer a year later. Pascal was killed on his motorcycle in 954. After my marriage I never went back to Aubire. There is nothing else I can remember about Sophie and the children except that I missed the children very much when they were gone.

That paper was dated 8 June 989. Dauntsey had taken over forty years of his part-time searching to find Marie-Louise Robert and his final proof. But he had gone even further. The last paper on the file dated 20 July 99o was in German, again with a translation attached. He had tracked down one of the German officers at ClermontFerrand. In bald sentences and official language an old man, retired and living in Bavaria, had for a few minutes relived one small incident

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of a half-remembered past. The truth of the betrayal was confirmed. There was one final piece of evidence on the file and it was in an envelope. Daniel opened it and found a photograph, black and white, over fifty years old and fading, but .still clear. It had obviously been taken by an amateur and it showed a smiling, dark-haired girl, gentle-eyed, with an arm round each of her children. The children, unsmiling, leaned against their mother and gazed huge-eyed at the camera as if knowing the importance of this moment, that the click of the shutter would fix for ever their frail mortality. He turned it over and read: 'Sophie Dauntsey. 92o-942. Martin and Ruth Dauntsey. 938942.' He closed the file and sat for a moment so still that he might have been a statue. Then he got up and, moving into the archives room, began pacing between the racks, stopping occasionally to thump his palm against the metal struts. He was possessed by an emotion which he recognized as anger but which was like no anger he had ever felt before. He heard a strange inhuman noise and knew that he was groaning aloud with the pain and the horror of it. He had no thought of destroying the evidence; that he couldn't do and didn't for one moment consider. But he could warn Dauntsey, let him know that they were already close and that at last they had the missing motive. He was for a moment surprised that Dauntsey hadn't retrieved and shredded the papers. They weren't needed any more. No court of law would see them. They hadn't been collected with such patience, such thoroughness over half a century to be presented to a court of law. Dauntsey had been judge and jury, prosecutor and plaintiff. Perhaps he would have destroyed them if the room hadn't been locked, if Dalgliesh hadn't reasoned that the motive for this crime lay in the past, and that the missing evidence could be evidence in writing. Suddenly the telephone rang, harsh and insistent as an alarm. He stopped his pacing and stood frozen, as if to answer it could shatter his intense preoccupation with the clamorous irrelevancies of the outside world. But it continued to ring. He went to the wall telephone and heard Kate's voice. 'You were a long time answering.' 'I'm sorry. I was pulling out files.' 'Are you all fight, Daniel?' 'Yes. Yes, I'm all fight.' She said: 'We've heard from the lab. The fibres match. Carling was

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killed in the launch. But there are no fibres on any of the suspects' clothing. I suppose that was too much to hope. So we're a little further on, but not much. AD is thinking of questioning Dauntsey tomorrow - tape recorded and under caution. We shan't get anywhere but I suppose we have to try. He's not going to crack. None of them will.'

He heard for the first time in her voice the faint questioning note of despair. She said, 'Have you found anything interesting?'

'No,' he said. 'Nothing interesting. I'm leaving now. I'm going home.'

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He put the photograph back in the envelope and the envelope in his pocket, then he replaced all the files on the top shelf, the manila folder among them. He put out the lights and unlocked and relocked the door. Claudia Etienne had left all the lights on the stairs shining for him and as he descended he turned them off one by one. He turned on the lights on the ground floor to see his way. Each action was deliberate, portentous, as if each had a unique value. He took a final look at the great domed ce'fflng, plunged the hall into darkness, set the alarms and finally turned out the light in the reception room and left Innocent House, locking the door behind him. He wondered if he would ever enter it again, and smiled ironically at the thought that he, resolved on the unforgivable perfidy, the great iconoclasm, could still be meticulous about the things which didn't matter.

There was no sign of life from the small side windows of number � 2. He rang Dauntsey's bell, looking up at the darkened windows. There was no reply. Perhaps he was with Frances Peverell. He hurried down the lane into Innocent Walk and it was then that, glancing to the left, he saw Dauntsey's cream Rover just moving off from in front of the garage. Instinctively he ran a few steps toward it but realized that there was no point in calling after it. Dauntsey wouldn't hear above the sound of the engine and the rumble of wheels on the cobbles.

He dashed to where his Golf GTI was parked in Innocent Lane and set off in pursuit. He had to see Dauntsey tonight. Tomorrow might be too late. Dauntsey had only half a minute's start, but that could be crucial if he had a clear turn at the top of Garnet Road and into The Highway. But he was lucky. He was in time to see the car turn right, heading east towards the Essex suburbs, not towards central London.

For the next five miles he was able to keep the Rover within sight. The homeward build-up of traffic was still heavy, a glittering, slow-moving mass of metal, and even by skilful weaving, and driving which was more selfish than orthodox, he was making slow progress. From time to time he lost Dauntsey, only to find when the traffic slightly cleared that he was still on the same road. And Daniel

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guessed now where he was heading. He grew more certain with every mile, and when at last they approached the AI2 he no longer had any doubt. But at every light, every pause, every stretch of clear road his mind focused on the two murders which had led him to this chase, to this resolve.

He saw the whole plan now in its brilliance, its initial simplicity. Etienne's murder had been planned to look like an accident, had been devised in all its details over weeks, probably months, the ideal moment patiently awaited. The police had always known that Dauntsey was the obvious suspect. No one could more easily work undisturbed in the little archives room. He had probably locked the door while he dismantled the fire, dislodged the rubble from the chimney lining, replaced the fire with its flue effectively blocked. The window cord had been deliberately weakened over weeks. And he had chosen the obvious night for the murder, a Thursday when Etienne was known to work late and alone. He had timed it for half past seven, just before he left for the Connaught Arms. Had that engagement been fortuitous, arising by luck on the night he had chosen? Or had he chosen that particular night because of the poetry reading? It would have been easy enough to concoct some other appointment, but it had always seemed strange that he bothered with the poetry reading. No other well-known poet had been present and the event was hardly of major literary importance. He would have waited his moment to slip into Innocent House unobserved once everyone but Etienne had left, would have crept up quietly to the little archives room. But even if Etienne had come out of his office unexpectedly and seen him he would have made no comment. Why should he? Dauntsey had a key to the building, he was a partner, he could come and go as he chose. Etienne would have assumed he was going upstairs to fetch a necessary paper or papers from his third-floor office before leaving for the Connaught Arms.

And then what? The final preparations would have been made about an hour earlier. Daniel could picture every action and the sequence of every action. Dauntsey had carried the table and the chair and placed them in the space outside the door; it was important that Etienne should have no way of reaching the window. The room was cleaned. There must be no dust or dirt in which Etienne could smear his killer's name. His diary with the pencil attached had already been stolen in case Etienne brought it up in his jacket or trouser pocket.

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Next Dauntsey lit the gas fire and turned it full on before removing the tap so that the fumes would begin to build up before his victim arrived. Lastly the tape recorder was placed on the floor and plugged in. Dauntsey had wanted Etienne to know that he was about to die, that there was no chance of escape, that in this isolated and empty building no one would hear the shouting and banging on the door, exertion which would only make his end more speedy, that his death was as inevitable as if he had been thrust into the gas chamber at Auschwitz. Above all, he had needed Etienne to know why it was that he had to die.

So the scene was set for murder. Then just before 7.3�Dauntsey had rung Etienne's office from the telephone by the door of the little archives room. What would he have said? 'Come up at once, I've found something here. It's important.' Etienne would, of course, have come. Why not? Mounting the stairs he might have wondered whether Dauntsey had discovered a clue to the identity of the practical joker. It hardly mattered what he thought. The call was from a man he trusted and had no reason to fear. The voice would have been urgent, the message intriguing. Of course he would have gone up.

The killing ground had been prepared, cleaned and empty. And what then? Dauntsey would have been waiting by the door. There would have been no more than a quick exchange of words.

What is it, Dauntsey?' Had his voice been impatient, a little arrogant?

'It's in here, in the little archives room. See for yourself. There's a message on that tape recorder. Listen to it and you'll understand.'

And Etienne, puzzled but unsuspecting, had walked into the room and to his death.

The door was quickly closed, the key turned and removed. Hissing Sid had already been hidden among the files in the archives room. Dauntsey laid the snake along the bottom of the door, ensuring that even this small amount of ventilation was blocked. There was nothing more to do at present. He could leave for his poetry reading.

I-Ie had planned to be back from the Connaught Arms by about ten to do what he had to do. And he could take his time. The door would have to be opened for some minutes to disperse the fumes. Then he would replace the tap on the gas fire and restore the room to its previous appearance. The tables and chairs would be carried back, the