Dark Summer in Bordeaux by Allan Massie

sense.’
    ‘Do you still have Germans in the house?’
    ‘That we have, though I’ve naught to do with them. I’ve made that clear. Not like Madame, she’s all over them, silly woman.’
    ‘And Sigi?’ Lannes said.
    ‘God knows where, or rather the Devil. I take no notice of him since he killed his own father, which you failed to prove.’
    ‘And the Spaniard?’
    ‘That long streak of nothing! He’s in and out, why I don’t know. Madame is thick as thieves with him.’
    Lannes showed her the photograph of Aristide Labiche.
    ‘What about him?’
    Marthe took it over to the window and shut one eye to examine it. She nodded her head twice, laid the photograph on the table went to the cupboard and brought out a bottle of marc, less than a quarter full, and two little glasses. She passed one to Lannes and settled herself in her chair holding her glass in both hands ‘He used to come here,’ she said. ‘The old count liked him, or came as near to liking him as the old devil liked anyone. They would talk for hours, don’t ask me about what, because I don’t know or care.’
    She had been the Count’s mistress for years, through his several marriages, and even in his feeble old age he would have his hand up her skirts. Her voice softened as she spoke of him, then resumed its habitual harsh brusque tone as she said,
    ‘Since you’re here with this picture I suppose something’s happened to him. He’s dead too, is he? Well, I know nothing about that. He was a gentleman, however, I can tell you that.’
    ‘Yes,’ Lannes said, ‘not only dead, but murdered. You may have heard of a body being found in the public garden. That was his. It’s the Spaniard I’m interested in. He was seen with the dead man.’
    ‘I know nothing about that,’ she said again. ‘But there’s wickedness in this house, always has been, always will be. That’s why that poor sot sitting in his father’s chair drinks himself into a stupor, day after day, to drown the wickedness.’
    Lannes had no reply to that. The old woman got up, took a lump of dough from a bowl and put it on a board, sprinkled flour on it and began to roll it out. She sniffed, twice. Then she wiped her hand on her apron and drank her marc.
    Lannes said, ‘The Count knows the dead man’s brother. He’s his client, perhaps his friend. They’re two of a kind.’
    ‘That’s nothing to me,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s anything to me, since the old devil died. I never thought I’d say this to anyone. Now go away.’

XVIII
    Léon was the first of the musketeers to arrive at the swimming-pool. He felt nervous, on edge. Lieutenant Schussmann had called at the shop for the first time in ten days, and had again pressed him to accept his invitation to have dinner. ‘It would please me so much, Léon,’ he had said. ‘I seek refreshment. So much of my work here is boring. Of course, I understand that you may resent our presence here. When I was your age I would have hated to see a French Army of Occupation in Würrtemberg. But such things are accidents of politics and history. They are no reason why you and I should not be friends. It would give me such great pleasure.’
    And for the first time Léon hadn’t said ‘no’. He hadn’t accepted the invitation either, but he hadn’t dared to refuse. It wasn’t possible of course that the man who called himself Félix could know that Schussmann had renewed his request. But he might know he had visited the shop – he might have someone tailing Schussmann – anything was possible. At the thought of Félix Léon felt as if he was at a door that would open on a house of desolation . . . And what would Alain and the other musketeers think if they learned that he was being solicited by a German officer? They would condemn him as a spy. Certainly they would never trust him again.
    He began to strip and thought how Gaston had liked to unbutton his shirt and run his hands over his body, murmuring lines of verse, sometimes