The Four Red Roses

By Francis Carr

The Four Red Roses; part imaginary blood and thunder adventure story, and part a possible explanation of real and terrible events that remain veiled in secrecy to this day. A reflection on the morality of revenge by the individual, rather than the State, and the justification for retribution when society is prevented by institutionalised evil from exercising its moral obligations.
In The French Alps, author Francis Carr enters a small - but very real - post office, displaying poster images of over twenty babies and children, lost during the previous ten years in the surrounding area, and still missing. How was this possible and why? What lay behind this terrible record of events? How could a community have come to terms with the grief and anguish that these disappearances must have caused? What had these murdered victims stumbled across, which merited a death sentence to silence them? What involvement must there have been by those in authority, resulting in bungled investigations, delays, and whitewash, in apparent hopes the events would fade from the collective memory and eventually be forgotten?
This real life experience remained in the author’s memory, adding to knowledge of other unexplained events in rural France, including the 1952 murder of Sir Jack Drummond and his family among other more recent and no less strange events in the treacherous mountainous regions.
The Four Red Roses provides one horrific explanation, and a proposed fight-back by two determined individuals, leaving the reader to decide on the morality of their actions, and that of those who realised what had been done in their name, and had granted absolution in the name of natural justice and the greater good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Francis Carr
• Release date: Dec 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781838302603

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

A CRUSHING BLOW

The phone rang, loud and insistent.

John looked at the bedside clock. 2.30 am. Who would telephone at this time of night? The thought flashed into John’s head that it could only be bad news.

A heavily accented voice spoke slowly and deliberately. It was French regional. This is Doctor Gerard at Aubervet-sur-Ain District Hospital. Am I speaking to Mr John Martin, the husband of a Mrs Anne-Marie Martin?

Yes, this is John Martin speaking. Why are you calling at this hour?

I am sorry to wake you, but I have terrible news. Your wife Anne-Marie Martin has been in a road accident.

How bad are her injuries. Is she OK?

I am not sure how to tell you, but I have to. Your wife died 30 minutes ago.

It was like an electric shock. John gasped. He felt sick. That’s impossible. I only spoke to her this evening. She was coming back to England tomorrow.

Mr Martin. I am so terribly sorry, but you must come to Aubervet as soon as possible. There are formalities to attend to.

Formalities? My wife is dead, and the only concern is formalities?

In the far distance, it seemed, John heard a voice say, Please write down this number and call me on my mobile first thing in the morning.

With tears streaming down his face, John wrote down the number, put down the phone, and fell back in his bed sobbing. His beautiful wife, his closest friend, the love of his life, with whom he had planned so many things to do together in the future years, was dead. My life is over too, thought John. But no, their two sons would need his support. He would have to be strong for them.

The horror of the thought that he would have to break the news to David and Ian, and to their wives and families, almost overwhelmed him and he howled out loud. He prayed, Please God, make it just a mistake. Make it untrue. I will do anything you ask, just bring Anne-Marie back to me. John probably fainted, for he remembered no more that night.

Little did John realise that the news he had received that night would start a chain of events that would profoundly affect not only his own life, but also the lives of almost all the citizens living in the small town in France.

Many weeks later, John would reflect on the extraordinary things that he had ended up doing but, for now, that was all ahead of him and perhaps that was just as well.

Anne-Marie Martin had travelled to the small town of Aubervet-sur-Ain on a freelance assignment for a national paper. She was to investigate rumours of a criminal network that was operating in the town and in the surrounding area. What made a possible story was that there were a number of unsolved disappearances, including that of a British student on a gap year. He had last made contact with his family by ringing them on his mobile phone from a village just outside the town.

Equally disturbing, were reports of young children going missing and of a number of unexplained accidents to outspoken critics of the bribery and corruption, which it was alleged was rife amongst the police and town officials. There were also rumours of a powerful drug ring established in Aubervet and, the parents of the missing student, feared that their son, who had been an outspoken critic of drug use, may have upset the wrong people, with tragic consequences.

Anne-Marie had said that she thought that there were echoes of the much-reported murders, in August 1952, of Sir Jack Drummond, his wife Lady Ann Drummond, and their 10 year-old daughter Elizabeth The murders had taken place near to the village or commune of Lurs, in the Alpes de Haute-Provence in Southern France, which was a district quite similar to Aubervet.

That was a worrying thought, since history ‘has often been known to repeat itself’, Anne-Marie had remarked with a nervous laugh, a laugh that would haunt John in the weeks to come.

After Anne-Marie mentioned this, John had looked up reports on the incident. The head of a local peasant farmer family had eventually been convicted of that murder and had been sentenced to death by guillotine. The sentence being commuted to life imprisonment, followed by his later release on humanitarian grounds.

However, the man had always protested his innocence, and the conduct of the police investigation, and of the trial, had raised very real public concern. There had clearly been the lurking thought that darker forces had been at work, and that Gaston Dominici had been a convenient cover for those who were actually responsible.

What made it worse, John thought when he had read the report, was that the main disquiet was over the lack of a clear obvious motive. It was thought that the Drummond family had parked their green Hillman estate car that day for a break in their journey and had walked down the winding woodland path leading to the nearby River Durance. Then, perhaps they had stumbled on something, or someone, or perhaps several people, which had made silencing them a necessity.

It seemed clear that the murders had been carried out in haste, the mother and father having been shot with a carbine and the daughter brutally beaten to death with the same weapon. Those facts all lent credence to the idea of a panic reaction to an unexpected intrusion into something that had to be concealed at all costs.

That was now over 60 years ago and it was very unlikely that the actual truth would ever be known. However, for John, there was the lingering thought that powerful influences could murder, and then manipulate the so-called forces of law and order to their own ends. It was a very frightening idea and John had not wanted Anne-Marie involved in a present-day version of those terrible events.

However, Anne-Marie was determined and anyway had expressed doubts about the likelihood of finding anything that could be the basis of a dramatic piece of journalism. She had said to John that the commission payment would help towards paying the mortgage and for their slightly extravagant lifestyle. Even if nothing came of it, it was still work and some income.

John had quietly expressed his very real concerns, having read something of the tribal nature of some areas of rural France, and the dislike of outsiders. John had experienced something similar in rural Devon, when he had spent time in a small but delightful village not far from the town of Kingsbridge near Salcombe.

He had owned a small pick-up truck and had been asked, as a favour to a friend, to deliver a sheep dip to a remote farm beyond Ivybridge on Dartmoor. Arriving at the farm, the gate to the yard was closed. Seeing that the padlock on the chain was not snapped shut, John had removed the chain, opened the gate, and had driven into the muddy yard.

As he pulled up, John had glanced sideways across the yard and was sure that he had glimpsed a face at a first-floor window and that the curtain had moved. Thinking that there must be someone there, he had gone to the farmhouse door and knocked several times. When there was no response, he had pushed the door open and called out, ‘Delivery, anyone there?’

The silence had been deafening and, being in a hurry to get back to town, he gave up and simply unloaded the dip and left it in the entrance to the hay barn by the gate. Later that evening in the local pub, he mentioned what had happened to a farmer he knew.

That was very unwise, he was told. I know that farm and Old Joe hates ‘grockles’, as he would call you. He has been known to let loose with his 12-bore rather than have to speak to a stranger. The farmer went on to say, Old Joe has received several warnings from the local constable, but one day it could end in tragedy. So best to keep well away. John had not forgotten that warning about behaviour in rural backwaters and so thought that perhaps the rumours about Aubervet might not be as far-fetched as they might seem.

Nevertheless, Anne-Marie was a consummate and experienced journalist and, laughing off his objections, she had packed her bags and, with a departing kiss, left for her journey to Aubervet.

John had expected to see Anne-Marie back home in England in three or four weeks’ time, at the latest, but now it was not to be. He now had to face the future alone, his sons had lost their mother, and the tragedy would be a terrible shock for the extended family and their circle of friends and neighbours.

John knew that it could be years before the wounds healed, and for him it would be never.

Having attended the funerals of several friends and work colleagues in the past, he had often wondered how those closest to the dead person were feeling. Now he was beginning to know how the bereaved must have felt, and he realised that it was knowledge that he had never wanted to have.

It seemed unreal. One part of his inner being screamed that it was only something that happened to other people; but his senses told him that now it was something that he, John Martin, had to live through. It was real. However horrible and unthinkable, it was real. Anne-Marie was dead.

CHAPTER 2

THE JOURNEY TO FRANCE

The next morning, John rang his two sons and, in a voice loaded with grief, told them the news.

The rest of the day was a blur. After endless conversations with members of his family, John telephoned the number that he had been given and arranged to travel to Aubervet early the next morning. Knowing that he had a choice of either flying to France or driving, John decided that the privacy of his own car would be best.

John was very aware that he might break down in tears at any moment, which would not be ideal for nervous passengers waiting in a queue to go through security for a flight. Distress could be contagious, and John did not want to add to the underlying fear always present in the mind of even the most seasoned traveller.

Films and TV programmes had made everyone aware of how many components could malfunction on a modern aircraft, and also the risk of lightning and bird-strikes. The landing of a doomed aircraft on the Hudson River was exciting stuff, straight out of Boys Own Annual but was really very scary. In the film, the courageous pilot could have been Biggles, his childhood hero, but the recent arrest of an inebriated pilot, about to fly after a night on the town, had not added much to public confidence. Passengers might think that the middle-aged passenger, bawling his eyes out as he boarded the plane, had a premonition that the flight was doomed. A horrible thought. No, he would drive.

Looking on the AA Route Planner website, John realised that the journey would be around 800 miles, and take about 12 hours. He would stop on the way and sleep in his car, he decided, taking food and bottled water with him for the journey. That way he would be alone in his grief and could imagine talking to Anne-Marie and try to come to terms with his loss.

On their trips away, Anne-Marie had always packed their suitcases and cabin bags and John had to think very hard about what to take for this journey. He decided to travel light and only take two cabin bags in the car and to pack them the way that his wife always had. So, that evening, John started his packing challenge.

In the first bag, socks and underpants went at the bottom with a carefully cut piece of plastic board above. Next came a spare pair of trousers, then three shirts and two of his favourite ties. On top, John put two pullovers and tightened the straps to keep everything in place.

In the second bag John put spare shoes, his camera and laptop, power cable, and a carefully folded dark blue blazer wrapped in a clean hand towel to protect it, together with his washbag containing his electric razor and bits and pieces. All the time he was sure that he would forget something vital, a must-have item that Anne-Marie would have known would be needed.

His sons had wanted to travel with their father, but John said No. He was emphatic. This was his journey. He would make the arrangements to bring Anne-Marie back to her home and the whole family would grieve together. That was how it would be. That was how it should be.

Having expressed their reservations, the two boys were in all probability secretly relieved. They would not be going to the place where their mother had perished. It would have been almost too much to bear, and they would have made it worse for their father if they had broken down.

And so, the following day, loading the bags into his silver XF Jaguar, with its lively 4-litre supercharged engine, John felt the challenge of the journey ahead. The car was capable of impressive acceleration, and a blistering top speed. John thought to himself that he would have to be careful to keep to the changing speed limits and to observe the various road signs on the way. He would not have Anne-Marie to keep reminding him as he drove.

He would also need to motor as economically as possible, otherwise the bill for fuel could get painful. There was a clip, with nearly a thousand Euros in their currency file, ready for a holiday that they had planned in a few weeks’ time. The reminder brought tears to John’s eyes as he zipped the notes into the inside pocket of his coat.

Checking that he had his passport and credit cards, John decided that he was as ready as he would ever be for the long haul to Aubervet. Closing his eyes, John offered up a silent prayer to Anne-Marie telling her that he would always love her and would join her one day wherever her spirit was.

The drive to the Channel Tunnel was uneventful and, at Junction 11A on the M20, John followed the instructions from the AA Route Planner that he had downloaded and drove onto the Vehicle Departure Road. John had made an advance booking the night before and so, following the signs into a self check-in lane, he stopped at a booth with the pictogram that the instructions had shown, inserted his credit card, and out came the hanger that he needed for the journey.

John was relieved to see that his boarding identification letter corresponded to the next departure, and so he decided not to go to the terminal building to shop. Instead, he went straight to an allocation lane and drove on to the waiting train. After a 20-minute wait, the train moved off and 30 minutes later John was in France.

He had driven on the continent before but, as usual, the change to the other side of the road needed fierce thoughts. Keep right, look left, John kept telling himself. John knew that the dangerous moments would be when something unexpected happened and the instinct to swerve to the left kicked in. Without a passenger to constantly mutter reminders, John had to concentrate and not let his mind wander for a second.

John had often driven on the A14 from Suffolk back to Hertfordshire early in the morning. On several journeys, he had seen lorries with continental markings, travelling from the channel port of Felixstowe, and had seen the tired drivers make the same mistake. If the road was clear, they would pull to the right, momentarily thinking that they were going into the nearside lane.

Fortunately, that morning the traffic was only light and, turning on his sat-nav, John quickly settled down to the task in hand. Soon, following the signs and the strangely disembodied but comforting instructions from his ‘navigator’, he joined the A26/ E15 towards Reims and Paris and then continued southwards towards his destination.

Approaching Lyon, John decided to take a break and, finding a service station with ample parking, he pulled in and parked the car. He carefully avoided spaces away from the main building and chose a bay easily visible to other travellers. This, he reasoned, should minimise the risk of the car being broken in to and he knew that, by double-locking the Jaguar, his belongings would be as safe as he could make them.

Having relieved himself in the clean and airy toilet facilities, John washed his face in icy cold water. Once dry, he then returned to the car to eat a chicken sandwich, before setting an alarm and taking a 40-minute nap. He had heard stories of travellers being robbed in their cars and, although John had parked near to the entrance to the building, he made sure that the car doors were locked before pressing the button to recline his seat to a comfortable angle and closing his eyes. Then, remembering a tip that he had read, he sat up and put on his dark glasses so that, from a distance, it would not be easy to see whether he was asleep or awake. John had expected it to be difficult to rest with the death of Anne-Marie on his mind. However, he knew that he must be alert for the remainder of the journey and so managed to blot out those terrible thoughts and dozed off.

Waking to the sound of the alarm that he had set on his smart phone, John reset his seat to upright, unlocked the car doors, and took a swig of water. He was ready for the next stage of his journey to Aubervet. But first John had to refuel his car and, although not having done that out of England for a long time, he was surprised at how easy it was.

Joining the toll road again, John followed the A6 and on to the A46/E15 on and on until, nearly 300 kilometres later, with the roads getting smaller, at last he saw the sign to Aubervet. He approached the town, climbing up a mountain road with several very narrow sections and two blind corners, which were barely two cars wide.

At the top, before the road wound down to the town, he could see to his right that there was a horrendous drop, cascading many hundreds of feet down to the valley below.

The shock of seeing this dangerous piece of road brought home to him the brief message that John had received about the accident that had killed Anne-Marie. Just as he emerged from a curving chicane, a huge lorry loaded with timber came charging past. The driver was clearly tired, or had not expected to encounter another vehicle. That driver could never have stopped if I had met him a minute earlier, thought John, and that would have been another tragic accident for the local paper to report. ‘Inexperienced English Driver Takes Dangerous Corner Too Fast and Loses Control’, the report would have read, and nobody would have been any the wiser. The driver of the lorry probably had an urgent delivery to make and, on a familiar road that he knew well, probably took risks as a matter of course.

Later that week, John would read in the local paper that two Swedish students on holiday had gone off the road nearby and had plunged to their deaths with apparently no other vehicle involved. It occurred to John that, if the car had collided with another vehicle, all evidence of that would have been destroyed as it plunged down the rocky mountainside, ending up as an unrecognisable wreck at the bottom.

John would wonder whether the true facts would ever be known. Later, he would discover that the transport, refuse collection, and construction companies in the region around Aubervet were all owned, or controlled, by one family. It was a family about which John would soon learn a great deal. Indeed, he would soon come to hate the members of that family with an intensity that would surprise him. He had also learnt that it would be a very brave person who spoke out against anyone in the pay of that notorious but seemingly untouchable clan. John, unknowingly at the time, was about to enter the bizarre and dangerous world that was the town of Aubervet-sur-Ain.

CHAPTER 3

AUBERVET-SUR-AIN

Arriving at the Hotel Post, John was greeted by the proprietor. The man looked agitated and quite distressed. He immediately expressed his condolences, obviously knowing the reason for John’s visit. John had not mentioned the reason for his journey on the phone when he made the booking, so the expression of grief was unexpected. Clearly, news travelled fast in Aubervet-sur-Ain.

Having checked into his room, John sat on the bed for a few minutes and then went to the bar. He needed a drink. He needed some sort of normality.

There was no normality, however. His life had been shattered. Anne-Marie was dead. He felt numb but pulled himself together. He ordered a large gin and tonic. John felt guilty that he was drinking when Anne-Marie couldn’t be there to join him. He felt destroyed and he buried his head in his hands and nearly

Reviews for The Four Red Roses

[Amanda German · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A really exciting and intriguing novel that keeps you gripped throughout.