Spook's Gold (32 page)

Lemele judged that this was going to work, but her patient was fidgeting and pulling too much. Turning around to put her back to him, she quickly tucked his ankle under her armpit and placed her forearm across her waist to lock the ankle in there. Before Marner knew what was happening, she had leant against the wall to further secure her vice-like hold on his ankle and then she went in quickly and decisively with the scissors. He roared and tried to jerk his leg away, but this time Lemele had sufficient surprise and force to get the piece of glass out.

She released his leg and turned back to face him, making it clear from her expression and shake of the head that she considered he was being a baby about it all. Marner was wary when she hauled his foot up again, but it was only to give the newly weeping cut another shot of Monsieur Pinault’s precious grog. From her bag Lemele tugged out a spare pair of clean, cream-coloured underpants. This immediately caused him to stop wriggling and cussing and he lay still on the floor, looking up with undisguised curiosity to see what trick she might be planning to play with them. She ripped them down one side seam and motioned him to lift his foot up once more. He obediently complied and the wide strip of material was wrapped around it as best the odd shape would permit. Lemele waved his dirty, bloody sock at him enquiringly until he finally understood that he was supposed to provide another to replace it. Marner rolled over to grope in his bag on the floor beside him and found a clean one, which she then tugged over the makeshift bandage. The final result showed a sock filled with a lumpy shape, but it was the best that could be improvised with the materials to hand. He lumbered back up onto his feet and tested his heel, nodding approvingly as he found that at least he could now put his weight on it.

When they descended again and left the house there was still no sign of the Pinaults. In the street, the last of the injured were being tended to and removed, although there remained a number of dead covered with sheets, curtains, rugs, whatever suitable items could be pulled from the ravaged ruins, along with the bodies themselves.

With the early morning sun now starting to paint the horizon shades of yellow and orange, they set off slowly for the station. At the bridge that crossed over the track they slowed and stopped, dismayed at the sight. The structure of the station building was still standing but was heavily damaged; the roof canopy was shattered and its frame buckled, all of the windows were entirely smashed. The tracks and points below the bridge leading up to and into the station were wrecked by the night’s bombardment. There were numerous bomb craters in and around the tracks, stumps of rails sticking up at crazy angles. The conclusion was simple: nothing was going to be moving through this station today. The train might be safely tucked away in the tunnel below their feet, but it could not move forward across the damage and so proceed on in the direction of Caen; it would only be able to go back in the direction of Paris.

Chapter Thirty Two

They stood for several minutes, taking in not only the devastated station, but also the destruction in the immediate vicinity, mostly domestic dwellings. Fire still raged in a few buildings beyond the station, all contributing to a pall of thick smoke blackening the morning sky.

Marner stood immobile. Frustration and confusion seemed to be physically whirling inside his head, threatening to drag him into despair. Tired and sore, dizzy and nauseous, he was aware that these physical effects were fuelling the mental ones. The panic that was loose in his mind was like a sheet flapping and cracking in a wild gale and he could not gather all of the corners, pull them down under control.

Lemele could feel him sagging further against her supporting arm and interpreted this as a worsening physical state rather than a mental one. She tugged on his arm to gain his attention and gestured in the direction of the hotels opposite the station. They had escaped direct hits from the bombs and their main structures were intact, even if all of the windows were destroyed, doors and shutters hanging askew.  The close proximity of the hotels to the station meant that the tape on the windows had had little effect against the blasts, except perhaps to limit the number of shards that they had fractured into. Inside the largest hotel they encountered only a few remaining military personnel who had been collecting their possessions from their rooms. Lemele was not sufficiently confident to approach them for help or guidance and she judged Marner to be in no fit state to do so either. Lemele was astonished that they seemed so cheerful, laughing and joking about their near escape; she wondered if they had been so brave during the actual bombardment.

Leaving Marner slumped on one of the few intact benches outside, Lemele entered and found a large man in chef’s uniform standing desolately in the centre of the front lobby that was strewn with rubble and glass. The man looked around upon hearing her footsteps cracking and grinding on the debris underfoot, but seemed disappointed in what he saw and returned his attention to his wrecked establishment. Lemele asked him for the address and directions to find a local doctor.

“Are you hurt?” He now shifted his interest to her; perhaps someone else’s misfortune could distract him from his own.

“No, not me. My friend that I’m travelling with has been injured.”

“Well then, try the hospital in the centre of the town.”  He waved a substantial arm in what Lemele assumed was the approximate direction.

“I think that the hospital is going to be over-loaded with all of the people who were injured last night.” Lemele specifically wanted to avoid the German military medical services, whilst the civilian hospital would wonder why he was not being taken to the military one. “It is only cuts and bruises, maybe a mild concussion. I would like to find a private doctor if possible, avoid troubling the hospital.”

The man considered for a moment. “You could try Doctor Corneille, he lives close by. He retired recently; in fact I think that he was forced to.”  He winked, mimed drinking from a bottle. “But he still takes some patients, just to keep him ‘fluide’, so to speak.”

Lemele obtained directions and the address, thanked the man and wished him good luck with the repairs to the hotel. He looked away without replying, shrugged his shoulders and let them slump in a way that conveyed his despair better than any words could.

She found Marner still slumped on the bench. Looping the handles of both of their bags over one arm, she hauled him to his feet. He smiled at her and she returned it, glad to see that he seemed more alert and focussed than he had been a few minutes ago. Possibly the rest had helped him. They made their way across the swath of splintered timber and rubble outside the devastated hotel to regain the main street, turned right and set off in the direction of the address that Lemele had been given.

The road sloped slightly downhill towards the river valley in which the town had been established. It took them nearly an hour to walk the kilometre to the doctor’s house; Marner was capable of walking with only minimal support from Lemele but his pace was a slow amble. They passed beyond the zone of the night’s bombing, the target of which had been solely the station, into streets of terraced houses and three storied town villas; homes of professionals and businessmen.

Lemele was shocked to see that the central streets, once the commercial hub of the town, had been flattened. Now they were just empty lots of bare concrete and earth, the original buildings only outlined by the foundations of the walls. They were relatively clear and tidy, so this was not recent damage.

The doctor’s residence was a large detached town house standing at the centre of a scrupulously neat and ordered garden. By contrast, the high iron railings mounted on a waist-high red brick wall were long overdue for attention, scabby rust showing through the flaking and discoloured paint. The gate was locked and Lemele reached through the bars to rattle on the bell, which sounded loud in the deserted and silent residential street.

At first she feared that no one would come but then, just as she was about to give the bell another try, the front door opened. The head that peered tentatively out was nearly bald, only a few wisps of grey hair sprouting around the ears. Lemele shouted to him that her friend needed urgent medical help. She was ready for an argument, but instead the door opened fully and the head emerged, attached to an extraordinarily tall and thin man wearing pyjamas, slippers and housecoat. He descended the steps and approached slowly; he was startled when he saw Marner, who had been obscured from his view by the stone pillar of the gateway.

“My friend here was caught up in the air raid last night. He has lost his hearing and possibly has a concussion,” explained Lemele. “Would you please take a look at him?”

The doctor was still bleary-eyed from sleep. Lemele recalled the words of the hotel owner, but did not think that he seemed drunk or hung over. “You should take him to the garrison medics. They are far more accustomed to treating battle injuries and such like than a family quack like me,” protested the doctor, who was hesitant and wary.

“The hospitals and medical staff are all overwhelmed with the injured from last night,” she improvised. “I’m not even sure that he needs a doctor, maybe just sleep would do, but I want to be sure.”

The man was still reluctant, immobile, staring at Marner with barely disguised distaste.

“Please!” she implored, and then was suddenly obliged to step smartly aside as Marner vomited onto the pavement.

“Very well,” agreed Doctor Corneille, producing a key from the pocket of his housecoat. He unlocked the gate and swung it open on screeching hinges, then clanged it shut again after them as they stepped onto the garden path. He led them up the wide stone steps and through the front door that was set into a stained wood and glass surround. It dated from an era when such provincial town houses were built with time and care by artisans. Inside, the main hallway of tiled mosaic floor and wooden staircase with ornate carving echoed the same imagination, taste and money spent. In here all was dusty and smelt of disuse and damp, despite it being summer.

They were shown into what the doctor referred to as his surgery, a large and bright room on the ground floor with rugs on the oak floorboards and wooden cabinets holding instruments and text books. Marner was laid on the examining table and Lemele used some paper towel to wipe off the vomit that remained on his chin and the sweat that was running freely on his face. Meanwhile, the doctor had rummaged in a drawer and located a small torch and a stethoscope. Together they loosened Marner’s tunic, who was unresisting and drifting in and out of consciousness, the walk from the station seeming to have entirely drained him.

The doctor examined Marner, finally pronouncing himself satisfied that he could find no evidence of actual injury to the ears, thus the hearing loss was almost certainly temporary. There definitely was a mild concussion and the doctor’s recommendation was to keep Marner sedated, immobile and under professional medical observation for at least forty-eight hours.

“But that’s impossible!” protested Lemele. “I can’t take him to a hospital, in addition to which we have to get to Brittany urgently.”

Doctor Corneille was visibly surprised and confused by some or all of what she said. He looked at her appraisingly and then motioned that she should follow him. They left Marner asleep on the table in the surgery and walked through to the kitchen. The view of the rear garden from the window of the airy kitchen caught Lemele’s attention and she moved to look out at the fruit trees, flowers in their tended beds opening their petals to the early sun, finches and other coloured birds already flitting in and out of the trees.

“The garden is my passion,” explained the doctor, who now stood beside her. “This side of nature is far more reliable and rewarding than us humans. And to think that we are called, what is it now?  Ah yes, the ‘top of the evolutionary ladder’.”  He snorted derisively.

Lemele nodded, only half listening. Corneille turned and put water on to boil, cutting bread and preparing breakfast, not even asking whether or not she was hungry. When the coffee was poured and put before her, Lemele fell upon it as well as the bread and preserves as if her last meal, which had in fact been Madame Pinault’s delicious left-overs, had been a week ago and not just the previous evening. When her assault on the contents of the table abated the doctor asked, “So why can’t you take this officer to the regular hospital, or his own people?  And why are you even helping him?”

“Why wouldn’t I help him?  He’s my friend.”

The doctor laughed gently. “I may have devoted my entire life treating the physical body, but I am also a shrewd judge of character and the human mind. It seems to me, even though we only met a few minutes ago, that you aren’t the type of French woman who helps his sort.”

Lemele chewed silently, acknowledging the truth in the doctor’s words. “You are right. I’m a police officer, which resulted in us working together on the joint murder of a French man and German officer. In the course of that investigation Lieutenant Marner saved my life. We are continuing our hunt for the murderer. And we stick together.”

Doctor Corneille nodded, satisfied with her answer, then added, “But you haven’t told me why you are avoiding the hospitals and, I can only assume, the German authorities?”

Lemele was silent for a moment, unsure of how much to tell him or how to phrase it. “Because somehow we have fallen foul of them. I don’t know why exactly; it’s a complicated case that involves some things that they want to cover up. I can only assure you that we haven’t done anything wrong and that our only interest is in catching this killer.”

He got up from the table without further comment, transferring the dirty plates and cups to the sink. Lemele wondered if what she had revealed would mean that he would now eject them from the house, maybe even contact the local militia or SD. She noticed then the photographs that were ranged on the kitchen dresser, typical family photos of the doctor and his wife, a young boy who evolved through the series of images into a young man. She got up and moved to examine them.