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PROVENCE, 1938
Monsieur Blanchet heard her screams from the vines and came running.
Somehow, she was led inside the kitchen, as she howled. She couldn’t seem to get her legs to move, and they half carried her inside to a seat. All the while, through her haze of tears, she stared at Monsieur Blanchet.
‘He – he is dead?’ he asked, and Freddie confirmed it, while Elodie tried and failed to stifle the howls that were escaping her. She wanted – needed – to go to the old man and comfort him – but she was unable to move past the wall of pain and grief that had hit her.
He half fell onto his knees beside her chair, placing a fist into his mouth as he began to sob and wail. ‘My son, my only son.’
Elodie at last managed to get off the chair, where she crawled towards him, reaching out a hand to lend him strength, then looking up at Freddie. ‘How – how did it happen?’ she asked her brother, through a voice that sounded strangled and unrecognisable as her own.
Monsieur Blanchet looked at him, begging him perhaps to say anything else.
Freddie swallowed and took a seat on her discarded chair, and he began to speak. She tried and failed to focus on Freddie’s words. But all she could think was that Jacques was dead. It seemed impossible. He could not be. How could she be in a world where he was not in it? ‘Are you sure – he’s d-dead?’
Freddie blinked, as tears leaked from his eyes, and he nodded.
Elodie’s lip began to wobble again and he carried on.
‘It seems that there was an altercation of some kind. Something to do with his research. The navy had decided to extend their facilities on the island, to expand installations for their North Sea operations, so that it could become a major naval and air base – part of this was a major land reclamation project. Apparently, tensions between one of the research teams and a junior officer had grown when they disturbed some of the nesting sites.’
Monsieur Blanchet bit his knuckle, and nodded. ‘Y-yes, he wrote to us about that.’
Elodie nodded. ‘Yes, but he said it was one of his teammates that had had words with one of the Nazi officers, not Jacques, he told him to keep a cool head.’
‘Herman Ludho, yes, that’s what I was told too. It appears, though, that when Herman lost his temper, it ended what had been up till that point a tense but polite state of operations between the ornithologists and the officers. The officer who Herman shouted at took great offence at his tone, and things came to head between them a few days later. Jacques intervened while they were fighting and he got caught in the crossfire.’
Elodie blinked. ‘He was shot.’
‘The officer said that it was an accident. That he was in the way but—’ He broke off, like he didn’t want to say anymore.
‘But what?’ asked Monsieur Blanchet.
‘I spoke to Jacques’ boss, and it seems as if there were witnesses. It wasn’t as the officer described it – as a kind of accident. It was deliberate. He turned the gun first on Herman and then on Jacques. It was an execution.’
Elodie began to keen. Monsieur Blanchet, however, became furious, stuttering in his pain and outrage.
‘B-b-but if they saw that,’ he said, ‘couldn’t they go to the authorities and tell them?’
Freddie shook his head. ‘Not when they are the ones in charge. They all turned a blind eye. The official report that was filed said it was an accident. It seems that this officer is someone thought to be on the rise. Jacques’ boss said that even if they could fight it, the fact is that they have broken the law. If they pursued the Nazis they would soon find out that Jacques had Jewish heritage, something that his team – along with my help – forged the paperwork to disguise. If the Nazis found out that they had illegally employed a Jew they could all be detained, or worse, suffer the same treatment as Herman and Jacques.’
Elodie fought for air.
‘Thank you for telling us,’ said Monsieur Blanchet.
Freddie nodded.
Elodie stared at the floor for a long moment, thinking of this man who had taken a husband, a son, who had wiped out two lives as if it were nothing, for the mere crime of annoying him.
‘What is his name?’
‘Who?’
‘The man who killed him. What is his name?’
‘What difference does it make?’ said Freddie.
‘Because they won’t always be in power, and one day he may still face his crimes.’
Freddie replied, ‘His name is Otto, Otto Busch.’
