Spoils of War, page 25
‘Jack, do you want to get arrested for child molesting or something?’
‘Just trust me. Please.’
An entry bell on the door rang as they stepped into a cool, dark cave smelling pungently of cheese and smoked meats. Fat Alsatian sausages hung above a glass counter displaying hams and tubs of liver pâté and choucroute, none of them looking very fresh. There was no-one behind the counter, but from an open doorway to the rear came a medley of sounds: the piping treble of the boy cut off by urgent adult voices, the residual clash of cutlery on plates betraying a French country family disturbed at their midday meal. A moment later an old man in a grubby grocer’s apron emerged from the door, to be immediately brushed aside by a much younger and tougher one in a workman’s bleu de travail. He glared at the newcomers and said: ‘Qu’est-ce que vous voulez?’
‘Pardon, monsieur,’ Dale began. ‘Nous avons seulement demandé des directions à vôtre fils –’
‘Etienne. Mon neveu, pas mon fils. Mais je sais ce que vous lui avez demandé. Qu’est-ce que vous voulez suggérer?’
‘Nous lui avons pas voulu de mal.’
The man’s hostile stare continued. The old grocer lingered in the doorway and from behind him the boy, Etienne, peeped out. Nothing but fear could have evoked such a reaction in these people. They had been anticipating trouble.
Dale turned nervously to Jack. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have come in here. This is the boy’s uncle. He seems to think we were trying to frighten the child.’
‘Tell him we’re sorry,’ Jack said. ‘Tell him it was just by coincidence that we spoke to Etienne. That we didn’t realize it was his mother we were asking about.’
‘His mother?’
Dale stared at him in bewilderment. He went on: ‘Ask this man if his name is Schuster. Tell him it’s his sister we’re looking for: Nadine, Etienne’s mother. And that we’re not here to cause any problems.’
The man had caught something of Jack’s drift and said: ‘Vous connaissez mon nom. Comment?’
'They’re going to insist on an explanation,’ Dale said.
‘Tell them as much as you need to.’
She began to speak, interrupted now and then by remarks and questions from the two men. There were other people in the living room at the back of the shop, and in response to a whispered summons Etienne turned away to join them. Then the bell at the front door pinged and three hefty farmers in blue overalls came in. Someone must have gone through the back entrance and alerted the tractor drivers from the café next door. Hands on hips, they formed a solid, menacing semicircle behind the two strangers.
Dale paused in her conversation and said to Jack: ‘I think I’ve convinced them that we don’t mean any harm. They admit that Nadine does live somewhere near here. They are her brother and father. Apparently she isn’t married, but Etienne is her little boy. He comes here for lunch from school every day. Beyond that, they’re stonewalling. I’ve told them we want her to help us trace a man she used to know in England many years ago, but they say that’s her own business. They won’t have us meddling in it.’
‘Is that a tacit admission that it’s Etienne’s father we’re talking about?’
Once again the boy’s uncle was quick on the uptake. ‘Son père?’ he said gruffly. ‘Il n’a pas de père.’
‘Tout le monde a un père, monsieur,’ Dale retorted. ‘C’est pour son propre bien que nous le cherchons.’
‘Pourquoi est-ce qu’on devrait vous croire?’
‘Vous pourriez étre n’importe qui,’ the old man put in.
Dale talked back to them with spirit, getting into her stride with the language. She spoke without interruption for a couple of minutes, raising her voice and wagging an admonitory finger, and when she had finished the two men looked much less certain of themselves. They glanced at each other and the younger one made a decision. He gave a gesture of dismissal to the three farmers, and when they had trooped out he said grudgingly to Dale: ‘Attendez. Je vais telephoner.’
Father and son returned to the room at the back, closing the door behind them, leaving Jack and Dale strangely alone in the shop. ‘What did you say to them?’ he asked admiringly.
She was full of suppressed excitement. ‘I told them they were being foolish not to trust us. I said that since we’d managed to trace Nadine Schuster here, others with less kindly intentions might be able to do the same, and that they’d be better off sharing their knowledge with us than hiding it. That thought really bugged them. Remember what I told you about the mechanical solidarity group? This family is obviously scared of something, and I knew what it was as soon as you’d made the connection between Etienne and his mother. The way that kid reacted to us! He’d been warned to beware of strangers – not just the run-of-the-mill strangers that all parents warn their kids about, but people asking questions about his mother. Foreigners. But why? The two of them must have been living quite peaceably in this backwater for the past ten years or so. Maybe she kept the name of the boy’s father a secret, maybe not, but either way she had nothing to be afraid of. Why the sudden anxiety?’
‘Because she knows Jalloul is on the run? That people might come looking for him?’
‘Exactly. And how could she know unless she’d been in contact with him?’
Jack turned to stare out through the glass doors, from the gloom of the shop into the sunlit square. He was struck again by the shabbiness of this village, and Dale’s thoughts gave an extra dimension to the reasons he had imagined for Nadine’s returning here and staying for so long. They also put a question into focus that Jack had never paid much attention to: who exactly did Jalloul have to be afraid of? Who might come looking for him? Vengeful Kuwaitis? Western war crimes investigators? Or the Mukhabarat, still chafing at his disappearance seven months ago? The man who’d appeared to be the main enemy in his own camp, General Malik, had since been killed, as Jack had learned last night from Al-Shaheb; but that still left a number of other possibilities open. Maybe Nadine Schuster would have some answers.
Her brother emerged from the back room, his phone call presumably made. His expression gave nothing away; he nodded curtly and said, ‘Venez.’
Colonel Thorpe had used his newly delivered Rotovator to till a patch of ground at the top of the paddock, and this morning he was spreading compost to prepare the site for maincrop potatoes. He’d been interrupted once by a restaurant owner who called to pick up an order of broccoli and leeks, and again by a retired couple he knew who chatted to him for ten minutes before departing with a single cauliflower. There was a tranquillity about this place that made people feel in no need to hurry about their business. He didn’t really mind, but his heart sank slightly when he saw yet another caller coming round the side of the bungalow.
This was a stranger and unusual looking for a customer, a young man in blue jeans and a loose-fitting windcheater who paused at the corner of the house before spotting Thorpe and picking his way past rows of vegetables towards him. His appearance was foreign, possibly Middle Eastern, the colonel thought, and he looked barely into his twenties. He stopped a few feet away and gave a friendly smile.
‘Colonel. . . Thorpe?’ Hesitating slightly over the name.
‘That’s me.’ Thorpe stuck his spade into the ground. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I beg your pardon. I have stopped you in your work. I will not delay you long.’
The young man’s English was correct, rather formal, probably not much practised. He had bright brown eyes and curly black hair. The apology for the interruption was a point in his favour, though there was a certain cockiness to his manner that made Thorpe wonder how seriously it was meant.
‘You may perhaps be able to help me. I am trying to find a friend of yours. A Mr Jack Rushton.’
‘Rushton?’ The colonel was taken aback. He hadn’t exactly forgotten his visitor of two nights ago, just hadn’t thought much about him since. ‘He’s not a friend, just someone I met the other day. Don’t you know where he lives?’
‘I do. But he is not at home. He has gone to Zurich. I wonder if you know where I could find him there?’
‘Not a clue. He didn’t even mention he was going.’ Annoyed now, Thorpe said: ‘The talk we had was meant to be confidential. Who on earth sent you here?’
The man didn’t reply directly. ‘There is some mistake, I am afraid. I have not met Mr Rushton, I was just given his name. I am trying to help him with some urgent business of his.’
‘Well, you’ve come to the wrong place,’ Thorpe said briskly. ‘I hardly know him either. He turned up on my doorstep, just the way you have . . .’ The memory struck a faint warning note. ‘Can you explain what help you want to give him?’
‘That too is a private matter. He may perhaps have told you that he is involved in some sensitive work.’
The colonel studied the young man more carefully. Sure of himself all right, and definitely from the Middle East. He had a gleam of sincerity in his eyes that almost hinted at fanaticism. Perhaps he had something important to tell Rushton about the missing Jalloul. On the other hand he might be fishing for information, but this seemed a peculiar way to go about it.
‘What we talked about was entirely our own business, I’m afraid. I don’t expect to hear from Rushton again, but if I do perhaps I could give him a message.’
‘Thank you. You could tell him I have news for him about a friend he was looking for. A friend from Kuwait.’
Thorpe relented slightly. There might be some genuine mix-up here, not a deliberate breach of confidence. Sloppy of Rushton all the same. He didn’t want to be unhelpful, or so he told himself. In fact, for once, curiosity got the better of his ingrained discretion.
‘Could I tell him that it’s good news?’
‘Oh, yes. Very good news.’
‘This . . . friend . . . wouldn’t happen to have vanished in Kuwait seven or eight months ago, would he?’
The young man smiled broadly. ‘I think we both know what we are talking about, Colonel. But I cannot say more.’
‘I understand. Well, if I do happen to hear from him . . . I don’t think you mentioned your name.’
‘Mr Rushton wouldn’t know it. But it is Ali Shakir.’
Nadine’s brother, driving a beaten-up 2CV, had led Jack and Dale a short distance back along the way they had come. Just past the schoolhouse he turned on to a bumpy, unpaved track that ran between dusty farm hedges, then met up with another departmental road. Almost immediately the car swung to a halt beside a row of three or four single-storeyed cottages. Jack drew up behind it.
The cottages were small and plain, with slate roofs and whitewashed walls, lacking in any self-conscious adornment. Not unattractive but not quaint enough, at a guess, to have excited the interest of second-home buyers among the French middle class, and so probably still serving as the houses of farmworkers. They also had the disadvantage of facing directly on to the road, which led across open country towards a town dominated by a castle. This was evidently a minor route to the old fortress town of Belfort; in the middle distance was a collection of flat-roofed buildings that looked like an industrial estate.
Schuster got out of his car. He gave no indication that Jack and Dale should remain where they were, so they followed him to a house at the centre of the row, through a gate and across a tiny garden to the front door. His knock was answered by a young woman, probably in her late teens, who disappeared at once towards the rear of the cottage and left them to find their own way in.
A dark, low-ceilinged hallway. Open doors on either side giving glimpses of a living room and two small bedrooms. Down a step at the end of the hall, a turning to the right showed a kitchen with a telephone on the wall among a row of pans and skillets. From beyond another closed door, straight ahead, came the only sound of life in the house, a cacophony of shrill little voices like the cries of different species of birds in an aviary.
Schuster opened the door. Behind it was a room that must have been added on to the back of the cottage. It was bigger than any of the others, with wide windows and yellow-painted walls plastered with brightly coloured posters and the crude paintings of children. Four or five toddlers were down on the carpeted floor, surrounded by building blocks, wheeled toys and plastic tricycles. In the middle of the room, a couple of older ones knelt on benches around a table covered in oilcloth, tongues curled out in concentration as they wrestled with plasticine figures or smeared finger-paints on sheets of paper.
A woman wearing a flowered pinafore over a polo-necked sweater and jeans presided at the table. She was in her early to mid-thirties and pretty in a slightly faded way, with blue eyes and lank brownish-blond hair that she brushed back from her forehead as she looked up, without expression, at her visitors. Nadine Schuster, the au pair from Farnborough, was still looking after other people’s children.
‘Les voici,’ said her brother by way of introduction. With a note of warning he added: ‘Tu sais tu dois pas trop dire.’
‘Je sais, je sais,’ she said.
Schuster left the room without another word. Nadine watched him go and then stood up and suddenly smiled at her visitors. It was a cautious but natural smile, and it immediately broke the tension.
‘Mon frére,’ she said resignedly to Dale. ‘C’est un têtu. A . . . hard case, do you say? You are English?’
‘I’m American. My friend here is English.’
They introduced themselves, shaking hands with what seemed an odd formality in the circumstances. Two of the toddlers, suspicious of the strangers, were clinging to Nadine’s legs; another had started to cry. The young woman who had answered the front door came in to pacify him. Nadine spoke a few words to her and then said, ‘They have their lunch now, and then they sleep. We’ll go somewhere else to talk.’
She gently detached herself from the children’s grasp. Leaving her assistant in charge of the crèche, she led Jack and Dale to the sitting room. It was small and stuffed with ageing furniture, and they had to pick their way past rickety low tables before they found room to sit down.
Nadine said: ‘You will excuse me if my English is not too good, please. It’s long since I spoke it.’
‘It seems excellent to me,’ Jack said.
She fished in the front pocket of her pinafore, removing a collection of crayon stubs and crumpled bits of paper and dumping them in a big ashtray, before she found a packet of Gitanes. She offered them around and was refused. When she lit one herself she drew on it lightly, without any sign of nervousness. Jack realized he had been preparing himself for someone different, a sad and lonely woman perhaps, or on the other hand a prickly and defensive one. Nadine appeared to be neither. Surrounded by children and the shabby comfort of the cottage, she seemed placid and not discontented, a young earth-mother, and certainly she didn’t share her family’s paranoia. Her figure was still good, though thickened slightly, and in the steady eyes, clear skin and wide mouth he could see traces of the youthful freshness that had attracted Jalloul all those years ago.
‘You have met my boy, Etienne?’ she asked.
‘We spoke to him by chance in the village. I’m afraid we gave him a bit of a fright.’
‘Po-po-po!’ She gave a dismissive wave but did not take up the subject. She seemed in no hurry to get to the point, explaining that she had opened the crèche once Etienne had started school. The children were mainly those of people who worked in the factories in Belfort; today being Saturday, she had only a few of them in her charge. Since she had no qualifications, the only alternative would have been a factory job for herself. This was more fun and it gave her a small but steady income, enough to keep her independent of her parents.
It was a strange monologue. She spoke as though nothing outside this village had ever been part of her life. But eventually, she said: ‘So you are looking for Etienne’s father. You did not hope to find him here, did you?’
Dale and Jack glanced at each other. Dale said: ‘Can we just verify one thing? His father is Ibrahim Jalloul, an Iraqi army officer?’
‘That’s right,’ she said uneasily.
‘Are you still in touch with him?’
‘For many years, yes, but no longer. I saw him for the last time in June last year. After that, in August, we spoke on the telephone.’
It was hard to penetrate her blandness. Jack said: ‘Your family, and Etienne himself, seemed very scared about the fact that we were looking for you. Is that because you expect Colonel Jalloul to make contact with you again? Or because they think others will come searching for him?’
‘Po-po-po!’ Nadine repeated, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘His grandparents and his uncle frighten him with talk about strangers. They get scared about things they don’t understand. Nobody is looking for Ibrahim. And I do not expect to hear from him.’
They waited. She swept her hair back off her face again. ‘I don’t know what you want with Ibrahim,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think I can help you. I think he is dead. In fact, I am sure of it.’
24
Jack had begun revising his opinion of Nadine Schuster as soon as they had met, and now he was forced to reconsider again. He had put that placid demeanour down to a certain lack of imagination; now he knew there was something stronger behind it. Her stoicism had served her well during the ten years of her intermittent love affair with Jalloul, and in recent months it had helped her to resign herself to what she obviously regarded as a form of widowhood.
She was a woman who could create her own contentment. In imagining her pining away for an unrequited love, Jack had merely been yielding to a stereotype. Sitting in that over-furnished little room listening to her talk about the relationship, he began to understand that it had been Jalloul who’d been the one more dissatisfied with their predicament, who felt guilty about failing to keep his promises to her, who insisted that she deserved better than she had. The conventional roles of a married man and his hopefully waiting mistress had been reversed.
‘I had more than he did,’ she said simply. ‘I had Etienne. I had my home and family here. Ibrahim had a wife he hated but whom he could not leave. He lived in a country where there was no trust, no certainty, and money only for favoured people. He liked the army, but he knew that if he rose too high in it his life would be in danger. He wanted to get away but he never could. When the chance came, he lost it.’
