Beyond Revanche, page 2
FRENCH SWEAR-WORDS
Trou de Cul – Asshole
Merde– Shit (or an equivalent)
Putain – Whore, Bitch but generally a stronger swear-word
Bâtard – Bastard
Bâtard Lèche – Bastard crawler or bootlicker
Cretin – Dumbass
Mère de Dieu – Mother of God (much less of a swear)
Prologue
January 1914
“That’s her, behind the Fabre Line cruiser. She’ll come across its wake and make for the canal any moment now.”
They had tracked the small twin-masted steamship from the moment it left Bastia. Bathed in an innocence warmed by the midmorning Corsican sun, La Pierre Cartes had sailed northeast with the accustomed ease of a frequent traveller. Onboard the worn wooden craft, powerful binoculars swept fore and aft, port and starboard, alert to anything unusual. No one cast a second glance in the ship’s direction. In its heyday, it carried passengers from Corsica to France and back in a three-day turnaround, but now there were other purposes which offered handsome profit. La Pierre Cartes had been transformed into an empty husk where hidden cargoes replaced second-class cabins. Its contraband was precious brandy, and wholly illegal.
As the vessel swung into Marseille’s canal Saint Jean, dominated by the formidable La Joliette fortress, bareheaded Corsican foot soldiers hidden inside the hold, clutched their weapons and listened once more to Carlo Vesperini’s final instructions … for a third time. He was rightly nervous. This was his first time in charge of the family’s “trading mission” and his future depended on quick success.
Onshore, the special task force watched in silence, weapons at the ready. Concentrating. Captain Rougerie gave his final order; “Keep low, everyone. Vincent, take your men through the left-hand alley and outflank them. Do not fire unless forced to. The rest of you follow me. Above all, keep them trapped in the canal.”
There was an unaccustomed quaver in the captain’s voice. Life was cheap in these parts. He had little confidence in instructions from city politicians, but his team knew the drill. These Corsicans were bandits to a man and woman, slippery as moray eels and just as dangerous when cornered. Political pressure demanded action. But no more bloodbaths. There had been too many, apparently, though politicians rarely ever meant what they said in public. The swoop had been secretly approved at the highest level and the plans had been carefully and thoroughly rehearsed. No one was to know in advance. There would be casualties, but it would clear the vermin from the streets.
Vincent Chanot led his squad through the narrow alleyway along the fish factory wall to conceal their advance from the Corsicans. It was their first action together. They were young, inexperienced, and excited; fear would have been a better shield.
A weathered fisherwoman sat pipe in mouth in a makeshift hide close to the far edge of the factory, lost in her own world of harsh work and harsher insults. She glanced briefly towards the four men hugging the sidewall as if it was their mother’s apron. Her brief respite from the tedium of endless slicing and boning was not to be interrupted by wasted greetings to strangers.
Instead, her attention was drawn towards the steamship as it slipped into the canal for it rode heavy on the calmer water. Suspiciously heavy.
The police squad had just broken cover when mayhem exploded from two sides. Gunshots cracked from above, ripping into the steamship’s starboard structure. Splinters raked the unprotected deck, but the Corsicans reacted instantly, firing blindly at anything that moved. Dockside, unsuspecting cafe patrons reeled in shock. Those already on the narrow quayside had little cover from a vicious indiscriminate crossfire. Vincent dived below a wooden handcart, which offered scant defence, but hid him from the immediate line of sight.
“Fire at the starboard portholes,” he screamed above the deafening explosions. “They’re using machine guns.”
A fresh burst of murderous hail turned in their direction, isolating a father and child who had been crawling towards a tethered sailing boat. Vincent raised his right hand and tried to direct them towards the factory. Man and boy broke cover, father half crouched, bending over his ten-year old in a protective shield. The detective grabbed the youngster and pulled him down. His father sank to his knees and hit the handcart wheel with what remained of his head.
It took time to work out what was happening. Vincent’s team were trapped between two armed groups, one safely positioned on the castle walls, the other, bewildered by the attack, fighting for survival on the vulnerable steamship.
“Look out! They’re firing on us from above,”
Vincent half turned to look as more bullets zipped around his head like angry wasps set on self-destruction. Why were these people shooting at them? Nothing made sense. Across the canal, two figures emerged from the front hold in a desperate attempt to escape, the tarpaulin shade above them already in tatters.
“Don’t let them get away,” Vincent roared as he set his sights on the fleeing Corsicans. Something slipped from the arms of the taller smuggler and splashed into the sullied waters. The figures steadied themselves to dive after the package, but a stream of bullets seared through one torso cutting it in half. Then silence. Smoke billowed from the port side, gifting the Corsicans unexpected cover. Bursts of sporadic gunfire confirmed there would be no surrender. Bright orange flames broke through on the starboard side, licking the deck above in a gentle arc.
The traumatized boy lay by Vincent’s side, gasping for air and drained of all understanding. The boy was in shock, face scraped by the sharp quayside dirt, innocence lost in a nightmare that would haunt his dreams forever.
“I’ll come back for you,” Vincent promised, but it was an empty gesture born of good intention to salve his conscience.
“Papa … Papa,” the frightened youngster sobbed, knowing full well that death stared back at him from his father’s lifeless eyes.
Vincent tried to reassert his authority. “Back, lads…we’ll try to cut off any stragglers at the other end of the alley.” No one moved. He looked back. His colleague’s head jolted forward angrily, blown apart from behind, shot from the fort wall. Murdered by an unknown assailant. A second was clutching a wound in his midriff, his lifeblood slipping into drains more used to fish-gut than human entrails. The man gulped for air. His mouth formed words that might have been a prayer, but stopped forever at “Amen.”
The third sat in silent shock, his back against a plane tree, drinking in the enormity of his injuries. Both legs were bleeding from machine gun wounds. Vincent knelt beside him and tried to stem the flow by binding a torn roadside rope tight above his right knee. The fisherwoman, whose half-hidden shelter had given her privileged protection, pushed him aside and took control of the wounded officer.
“Arsehole” she spat in disgust
Vincent ran towards the burning ship through the billowing smoke, blinded by his own inadequacy. The unit captain, Rougerie, lay close to the single gangway, his team around him in a roll call for hell. They had been caught in the crossfire as they approached the steamboat. Their guns lay beside them, unused. Ambushed. Unquestionably.
His own team had been wiped out. Bennet, Toutain, and Verany were their names, but he never knew who was who. More bodies bobbed on the surface of the canal. Vincent crouched at the waterside unable to speak, unable to think. The ancient Roman towers of Marseille’s iconic green and white-striped Cathedral broke through the thick, foreboding smoke, mocking both the living and the dead. It looked like the bastard child of a forced marriage between a Byzantine immigrant and a Roman refugee, but it loomed over the carnage in self-important mockery. No God worthy of worship would have permitted such callous slaughter.
A flesh-colored toy bobbed slowly in the water. Almost lifelike, it had lost an arm.
“Oh, Christ.” Vincent dived instinctively into the rancid canal and struggled to lift the small body out of the slime. Only then did he realize. He howled to the bare fort walls and his horror reverberated over the battlements and echoed into the unsuspecting city. Behind the child a woman torn in two floated, arms outstretched, as if she was trying to catch the infant in an innocent game of chase. Sirens rose and fell. Voices spoke words that made no sense. Transfixed, he sat in the solitude of shock as life moved cautiously around, trying to dissect the unimaginable.
“It was just a baby,” he told the police officer who coaxed him from the canal-side by insisting he had to see a doctor. It was a lie.
The police car swept him, head in hands, past the Saint-Esprit Hospital, which looked more like a luxury hotel than a place of healing, straight to the Town Hall. Of course, they were taking him to his grandfather, the Depute Mayor Chanot. Politics.
“Vincent.” He was greeted with open arms. “Vincent.” The old man’s voice was edged with annoyance. It felt like he was about to be scolded.
“Grand-père,” he mouthed. Still breathless in confusion, he shivered involuntarily.
“What happened?” No kiss to the cheek. No familial warmth. Vincent sensed he had done something wrong.
The depute mayor’s balding grey head, formal black morning coat, sharp-nosed features, and tight-lipped mouth gave him an eagle-like appearance, as did his predatory eyes. He bid the room empty itself of officers and staff with one stern nod towards the door. He would speak to his grandson alone.
“Vincent, sit down. Can I get you a drink?” He made to ring a bell on his desk but his grandson shook his head.
“Bad business, this. Bad business. It would appear that your squad was caught in a Mafia ambush near La Joliette. Wrong place, wrong time. Most unfortunate.”
“No. That’s not what happened.… We were supposed … but…”
“But what?” his grandfather rasped with such venom that Vincent thought he had stood on a reptile.
“That’s not what happened,” he repeated slowly, looking to his grandfather for the comfort of understanding.
The depute mayor’s eyebrows met in disapproval. “Are you saying that the chief of police is lying?”
It made no sense. They’d been monitoring the illegal traffic in brandy from Corsica. It was a secret operation, the result of months of surveillance. At least it was supposed to be secret. What they walked into was a carefully planned ambush, not a surgical strike to round up half-brained smugglers. This was certainly not an unfortunate coincidence. Vincent tried to work out what had happened, but words and questions leaped over each other to add to the confusion.
“People knew what was happening. People in high places, here in the Town Hall, in police headquarters. It was a set up. We were ambushed. We were sacrificed.” He looked up again for reassurance but saw instead a brooding anger. Did his grandfather think he was lying?
Depute Mayor Chanot physically distanced himself from Vincent. His grandfather, the man who had taken him into his home when his widowed mother died of pleurisy, took three steps back and cut an invisible umbilical cord. He looked sharply from side to side to reassure himself that they were alone, marched directly into Vincent’s space, put his hands on his shoulders, and fixed his glare on the young man’s ashen face as if he was a practiced hypnotist.
“Nonsense, you’re in shock. You don’t know what you’re saying, Vincent. I thank God you were spared this morning … but you cannot go about speaking like this. People will misunderstand. If you made such allegations in public, the fallout would be catastrophic … for our party, I mean. If you, you of all people, my grandson, raised ridiculous suspicions…”
He never finished the sentence. A flunky burst into the room as if summoned telepathically. He ushered the depute mayor towards the interior window and whispered urgently in his ear. The old politician gasped.
“Two women and a child were shot dead in the affray, Vincent. You need to know that they were Carlo Vesperini’s mother, wife, and child. Witnesses claim that they were shot dead by the police as they tried to surrender.”
Merde. Vincent closed his eyes and relived the moment. He had. He had told his team to shoot at the people escaping overboard. The baby. The woman. Just floating in the canal. Vesperini’s family. Christ. He was responsible.
“But we didn’t know who was who. How could we? It was a double ambush. There were two targets, the Vesperinis and us,” Vincent reasoned.
“Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.” The depute mayor dismissed his explanation.
Anger pumped through Vincent’s veins like a deadly poison, but for now, compliance was his best option. Grandfather would insist that he was right. It was always so. And if he had killed Carlo Vesperini’s mother, wife and child, he was dead. Mafia families were not to be crossed by the living. Vincent Chanot lifted his head and faced a grim and short future.
Depute Mayor Chanot thought otherwise. “Wait here. Don’t move. Speak to no one.” He reached the door and spun round in an afterthought. “When were you assigned to that unit, Vincent?
“Yesterday.”
“Ah.”
And he was gone, leaving his grandson in a guilt-ridden hell. The broken porcelain child bobbing in the water. How? The carnage that had erupted when they’d broken cover. It made no sense. The captain and his unit spread-eagled in death, mowed down by machine guns as they approached the ship. Why?
The depute mayor must have been gone for the better part of half an hour. Vincent sat mute, all senses seized. Broken. His grandfather returned as he had left. Swiftly.
“We will say that you were killed in action. I’ve made arrangements. Trust me. You are a good detective, Vincent. France will need your service in the days and months ahead, but it will be much safer elsewhere. For you, I mean.”
Vincent shook with anger. This wasn’t about his safety. What had happened had another purpose; served another agenda for political reasons. It didn’t take him long to work out that his survival was more than a slight inconvenience. But who was pulling the strings? His own grandfather was certainly one of the political elite. But who else? Who ran this city? Politics and power were much more important than a grandson. If he hadn’t appreciated the cost of bitter disillusionment this morning, by nightfall he did.
“You will change your name, Vincent, and leave Marseilles. Start a new life. It’s the only way acceptable to them. I’ve arranged new papers for you and a respectable post in Paris. Start again. You’re young, you’re resilient, but you must go now.”
When the train from Marseilles pulled into the Gare de Lyon in Paris, Vincent still could not fathom who his grandfather meant by “them.” Corsicans, Mafia, their own police force, politicians, or others? How far did this go? He was trapped in a conspiracy inside a conspiracy and his grandfather’s solution was his exile.
And he was no longer Vincent.
Raoul‘s Story
THE ROOTS OF DESTRUCTION
I ran across the road and onto the sand, picking up speed; not sparing a look backwards. One minute was all I needed to get around the first rocks and they would not know where I had gone.
Slam. I fell down head first as I ran. Then the noise of a gunshot carried forward into the soft beach. The shock of pain blasted through me and then subsided. The sand was warm and accepting, I heard my neighbors’ shouts and the soldiers’ reply, but it took some moments to understand.
A gruffer voice spoke in a matter-of-fact way. “He’s not dead, Sir. Should I shoot him in the head?”
You coward, I thought. I’m unarmed and cannot move, yet you would shoot me in the head? You coward.
Listen to me please, my friend. I have to tell it as it was.
I used to believe my mother the most beautiful woman on earth even though I have no true memory of her. There was once a faded photograph in my father’s study but I don’t know what happened to it. She haunted my dreams for many years, pleading with me to help her, but it made no sense. She left me at the age of two. Or was it four? Still, it wasn’t her fault, it was his, of that I am certain. A son knows.
My father told me he was important, many times. Praise for me did not fall naturally from his lips, save a simple recognition that I was clever. My brother was said to be strong, dependable, honest, helpful, good at games, and at ease with the ladies. There seemed to be an endless lexicon of affection with which his hallmark was stamped. But I was only clever. That was his word, clever. I wore it first as a badge of distinction, proud as Lucifer and every bit as deceitful. But as the years progressed, his praise lost value like outdated currency until I merely “used to be clever.” I remember the first time he said that. The parish priest was in my father’s study and, though I was an altar boy, he offered no objection. “Used to be clever.” How that stung. Me? I was the one who spoke in flawless Latin and knelt before the raised sacrament. I knew how to fire the incense in the thurible and swing it with unerring precision. Perhaps I was clever then.
He told me that I had no personality, no worthy attributes, no sense of conviction. At best, I might be a dreamer. I was dubbed a wastrel, a butterfly who flittered from one idea to another. From clever boy to inconsistent, inconsequential loner. He told me I was scared of my own shadow, too fragile of nature to risk a fall, but not fit company for the brave and the daring. As with all he said, it was rot. An illusion he invented to salve his own conscience. What I still don’t understand is why.
My father.
I’m tired. Very tired. May I sleep now, just for a short while? You will stay won’t you?
Part 1
Fin de Siècle
1
March 1914 – La Belle Époque
It started with a phone call to the prefecture. Like a thunderclap from an otherwise seamless sky, the day literally exploded and no one saw it coming.
Mathieu Bertrand was seething, angered that his so-called colleagues thought it funny to leave him behind like a glorified office boy. Let him know that he didn’t belong. Well, sod that. He didn’t choose his transfer. He hadn’t even chosen his new name. It had been ordained between Marseille and Paris at a level beyond objection. Even if they had asked him along, he wouldn’t have gone for a drink. Bastards treated him as if he was a liability imposed by the prefect of police. Their obvious dislike offended him, but he wouldn’t let it show.
