The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

train.’
    ‘The Neuvic train, really?’ The Mayor replaced his spectacles and peered at the note. ‘July 26, 1944. It was the very day the Americans were making their breakout from the Normandy beachhead.’ His voice tailed off and he fell silent, his eyes fixed on some other place, some other time.
    ‘I’ve only heard the legends. They say it was a lot of money.’
    ‘Money? Over two billion francs. Two thousand three hundred million, if memory serves me right, which means something over three hundred million euros in today’s money. Did you know it all began as a plot between two of our Prefects? One was a
Résistant
and the other was condemned as a
collabo
, although perhaps that’s too crude a word.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’ Bruno’s head was still reeling at the idea of three hundred million euros in cash, and wondering how much it had weighed, how it had been taken from the train.
    ‘I suppose it was a credit to the wisdom of our Prefects,’ theMayor began. There had been the Vichy Prefect, a career civil servant named Callard, and Maxim Roue, the Gaullist one who would replace him after the Liberation. The two men knew each other, and remained in discreet contact. With the Allies already established ashore in Normandy and the Russian armies thundering through Poland towards Germany, Callard knew the Vichy regime was doomed. With an eye to his own future, he tipped off his successor that the Banque de France reserves were to be moved by train from Périgueux, where they had been stored to be safe from the bombing. The money was to be taken to Bordeaux for consignment to the
Kriegsmarine
. There was speculation that the German navy wanted to ship it out by submarine; perhaps to finance a new Reich in Argentina. Whatever the motives, the Resistance ambushed the train and took the money. A man calling himself Lieutenant Krikri even left with the train guards a signed receipt for the full amount, plus another fifteen hundred francs for the canvas sacks that held the money, each one sealed with lead and stamped with the seal of the Banque de France. Altogether, the haul had weighed six tons.
    The Mayor explained that various official inquiries after the war had concluded that the money was spent on pay and supplies for the Resistance and money for their dependants. Even after the Germans lost Paris and retreated back into Germany some of their garrisons held out in La Rochelle and elsewhere. The Allies couldn’t spare any troops for them, so the Resistance took over the task, transforming themselves into official units of the French army in the process. But they still had to be fed and paid and their families supported. That was the official explanation.
    ‘And the unofficial explanation?’ asked Bruno.
    ‘All rumour. Some of the local Resistance chiefs enjoyed very wealthy lifestyles after the war, Malraux for one, although he was too close to De Gaulle to be touched. There was another, a man called Urbanovich who suddenly became extremely rich with a big place in Paris and another in Cannes and ran one of the most expensive art galleries in Europe. Not bad for a Communist who was probably a Soviet agent. But nothing was ever proved.’
    ‘Three hundred million in today’s money – there must have been a lot of cash left over.’
    ‘Indeed, which is why the rumours persist. But you should remember that there were no public funds for political parties until the mid-1950s, and parties need premises, staff, printing facilities and newspapers, particularly a new party like the Gaullists. I think you’ll find that most political scandals can be traced to money, that or sex.’
    ‘You mean there’s a difference?’ Bruno said with a grin.
    ‘So cynical, so young. Leave such unsavoury reflections to your elders.’ The Mayor smiled back, more cheerful now. ‘If you’re interested in all this, there’s a woman historian at the Sorbonne who has a house the other side of Les Eyzies. Her name is Jacqueline Morgan and she’s half-American, half-French – her father was a diplomat in Paris after the war and he married a woman from the Périgord. I ran into her in the Bibliothèque Nationale when I was doing some research in Paris. She’s gathered a lot of new material from the British and American archives on the Resistance and their post-war political roles. She’s working on a book that I think should make quite a stir.’
    ‘Sounds interesting.’ Bruno would make a point of visiting