Hunting Ground Read Online Free PDF Page B

butchery, the arrogance, the whole attitude of the Nazis, a hatred, yes, but buried then—hidden just beneath the leaves like the ground.
    I had come home from Paris. We’d had a treasure hunt, me and the children. Most successful. The source of the earrings my sister had been given. The faceted citrine droplets.
    Jean-Guy had found the jewel box in the attic—pewter-bound, with a lock and, fortunately, its key. The box had been buried beneath some things, wrapped in an old shirt. The treasures of my father-in-law’s mistress, recovered at her death, I supposed, by some lawyer—ah, the French, you have to know them to believe such things.
    Had she killed herself? I wondered. Had that been it? There were cameos, bracelets—one of black opals, another of rubies, sapphires, ivory, and jet …
    Another and another of rhinestones, the cheap and the gaudy intermingled with the good as if the giver had known the difference, but the recipient hadn’t.
    Russian silver. An emerald-and-diamond tiara, a priceless thing. Far too much for even the best of the other contents of that box. Something for a princess or an empress, something especially made by a court jeweller. One hundred or 150 years old, perhaps a little more.
    The central emerald was almost round—a broad and stunningly deep green oval larger than the last joint of my thumb. Perfectly matching faceted emeralds, some square, others round or rectangular were all held by finely beaded, very thin wire gold, while scrolls, and swirls of diamonds in silver ran between the emeralds—1,031 diamond brilliants, 46 emeralds.
    Now you know why I was worried.
    Hidden in the forest, I took that thing out of my canvas shoulder bag. I’d wrapped it in a chamois and, for a moment, I simply stood there gazing down at it.
    The sound of the leaves came to me again. Everything in me said to put it back and run—take the children to England and claim no knowledge of it. But, ah, mon Dieu, I didn’t know what to do. It was Jean-Guy’s buried treasure, and he was very angry with me for having confiscated it. Oh, for sure, he wouldn’t tell his father, not for a while. The attic had always been off-limits for the children. Jean-Guy knew this. On pain of death he wouldn’t confess, and if death didn’t suffice, the shame of being ostracized would, but for how long? Soon the whispers would begin. Soon Marie would pry the secret from him and … Would he give the secret away at school?
    I ran my thumb over the encrusting stones. I tried to think of where it might have come from. Marcel? I wondered. Jules himself? Had my husband found it in some forgotten drawer at the Louvre and simply brought it home?
    Marcel was a pal of his, an artist of sorts, a freeloader. I could never understand why Jules and he got on. Always smoking, always gassing about, that one—both the mouth and the other. Posturing. Of all of my husband’s friends, I had liked him the least.
    Jules would miss the tiara if I were to take it from him and go to England, but I couldn’t do that, not yet. First, I had to find out the truth.
    ‘Madame, my apologies. It’s the weather, the times. Perhaps if I might come in? A cup of coffee, a glass of wine?’
    The weather … the times … The local people always blamed one or the other. The war. ‘ Monsieur le maire, what is it you want with me?’
    Self-consciously, the portly mayor of Fontainebleau took off his fedora and ducked his shoulders as if to launch himself through the door. When I didn’t step aside, he let me have it. The English … they had no respect. I could see this in his expression. ‘It is not you I wish, madame. It is your husband.’
    ‘Jules …’
    ‘Oui.’ Picard mopped his florid brow and tugged uncomfortably at the knot in his tie. I would not be easy to deal with. ‘The taxes, madame. They haven’t been paid in some time.’
    The taxes. Anxiously wiping my hands on my apron, I stepped aside. ‘I was in the kitchen, you understand.