The Battle of Brittany

One Phone Call

She could easily have walked there but that wasn't to be considered.

No contact in person. She had promised her father a long time ago, almost sixty-years now.

Besides, she didn't want to leave her father's museum, even for an hour. She lived in the two back rooms; multiple days would be ticked off the calendar between necessary visits to grocers or the hair salon. She no longer went to church and there was no other reason to be outside her tiny kingdom.

"A well-dressed Englishman was asking about Eloise Garunde." She lacked the ability to distinguish between the races of Great Britain, assuming English speakers were English unless they had an American twang and wore louder clothes.

"What else did he ask?" There was no thank you for the information given.

"About the war but..."

"But what?"

"Two things, monsieur. I don't think he connected the Garunde family with the war. I think he was just trying to be polite when he asked about the war."

"And the other thing?"

"I told him nothing."

"You refused to answer? That's foolish. It would make anyone suspicious. Oh, I see. You did answer but you didn't give any information away?"

"That's correct, monsieur. Can I ask one question?" She thought afterwards that she had asked two because the first was seeking permission for the second.

"Quickly, I haven't got all day."

"Monsieur, you will keep sending the payments?" She hated discussing it.

"The relationship's under review," came the voice back after a considerable pause. Then the phone clicked off. Berrince never made immediate commitments if he could help it. He needed to investigate; there had to be something behind her curious request. He thought a moment longer then pressed his intercom.

"Get our man at the post office to put a trace on all deliveries to the museum."

"Yes, monsieur, at once."

"Have her post brought to me. I want to see everything first."

He had made no payments to Madame Boufleur. At first, he had no money to give; everything he made was ploughed back into the business. Her father had been alive in those days and had put up many barriers to any form of contact. Eventually, Berrince had given up his attempts to get in touch. Then, when her father had died in '38, the pattern of no contact had continued.

Except, every year or two, Madame Boufleur phoned, usually with some information she picked up from visitors to the museum. Sometimes the information was spurious, as if there was a contract and Madame Boufleur felt obliged to dig something up to fulfil her obligations. He usually dismissed her calls, but today's information was perplexing. He needed to know more.

If someone was sending cash, he wanted to know who and why.

Jean Claude Bremen's grandfather had barely stopped smiling since his promotion to Senior Concierge earlier that year. Something similar had happened years ago when Monsieur Berrince, his employer, had taken him to Germany. He often relived that week in Berlin. Not that he had seen the city, nothing to tell Jean Claude about the bright lights and the theatres, restaurants and night clubs. He had been inside a bunker deep in a forest outside the city. But to an imaginative young man that was enough.

And now it had come around again. He had charge of the other concierge who worked shifts like him to keep the hotel ticking over. He had already spoken with Beruille, trying to tone down his aggressive attitude towards the guests. If that did not work, the man would have to be dismissed.