by Mark Leggatt
“I’d turn the handle the wrong way.”
The patron grinned and fished around in his pocket. “When I was a kid, I thought your grandfather was the best dressed man in Paris. Give him my regards.”
Charlotte grabbed the key and pulled Montrose by the arm. “Connor, come with me. Right now!”
He followed her as she swerved around bar stools to a door in the corner. It was open and they ran down the steps into a cellar.
“Charlotte, they’ll find us, we have to run.”
She didn’t turn. “Follow me!” She flicked on the light. The room was littered with beer kegs and boxes of wine. “Over here!” she said and ran to the far wall.
Two small doors faced them. Montrose turned the handle of the first and pulled it open to reveal a cupboard of shallow shelves, littered with old bottles and bar cloths. “Charlotte. This isn’t going to work.”
CHAPTER 29
Charlotte twisted the handle of the second cupboard, but it was locked. “Idiote!” Her hands shook as she tried to push in the key and it fell from her grasp.
Montrose grabbed it from the filthy floor. “I’ll do it. He slotted in the key and grasped the handle, then pulled open the door. It was an identical cupboard.
“No!” she said. “Close it!”
“What?”
“Do it!”
Montrose slammed the door shut.
“Give it to me.” She turned the key in the opposite direction then twisted the handle to the left and pushed the door. “It’s stuck. Help me!”
Montrose put his shoulder hard against the door. The whole cupboard swung inwards on squealing hinges to reveal a dark passageway cut into the stone.
“Go first,” she said. “Find the lights.”
Montrose jumped in and covered his face from the stench of raw sewage. He ran the palm of his hand up the clammy wall and found a switch. Low wattage bulbs fizzed into life. A line of wet stone steps opened up before him, descending into the gloom.
She shoved past him and hauled the cupboard back into place.
Montrose tried to pinch his nose, but it hurt too much.
“Take your time.” She blew out a breath. “They won’t find us now. Connor?”
He turned towards her and could see the fear in her eyes.
“Were they the police? They didn’t look like policemen.”
“Maybe.” Hard to tell. The list of people wanting my head on a plate is getting longer.
“I can help,” she said. “My contact, when they get the diamonds. I can ask them to protect you.”
“Yeah, that would be good.” Mossad would be grateful. Dammit, they had to help. I’ve got no more cards to play. The fetid smell became stronger as he descended the steps. “Where does it go? No, don’t tell me. I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“Les Egouts. The city sewers. My grandfather told me of this place. The family of the patron have always been famous for smuggling. The police could never catch them. During the war, the patron’s father hid British and US airmen down here, then passed them down the line of escape routes to Spain. There was a whole network in France dedicated to getting prisoners to safety. Or at least out of Nazi-occupied territory. Of course the network also worked in reverse, for contraband wine and brandy. The Gestapo never found out. But then the Résistance had the sewers booby-trapped. You had to know what you were doing. The ones that didn’t, well, their filthy German bones were washed out to sea.”
“Nazis, not Germans.”
She stopped and turned. “What?”
“Have you ever heard of the S.S. Saint Louis?”
Charlotte gave him a puzzled look.
“It was one of the last ships out of Germany before the Nazis closed the ports. Packed with refugees. My grandfather was on that ship. Otto Heffel. An English teacher from Berlin. Just passed his exams and on the run because he spoke out for the Jews. He sailed to America, but they wouldn’t let them in. Neither would the British Colonies. Then they ended up in Cuba. Same thing. He got the message. It wasn’t hard to steal a sailor’s uniform and slip ashore then disappear.”
“Your grandfather was German?”
“Yeah. Once he’d mastered the accent it was easy to get to the States and turn up at a recruiting centre. He said he was a country boy. No papers. Then he joined the fight against the real enemy. Not the Germans. The Nazis. He landed with the US Rangers at D-Day. He wasn’t alone. There were tens of thousands of Germans who stayed behind and fought for what was right.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I didn’t know. Maybe they should have done more.”
“Their life expectancy was measured in days. But they made a difference. It’s not all black and white.”
She shrugged, but said nothing.
Montrose looked down at her dress and pulled off his raincoat. “You’d better take this.” He could hear the water. At the bottom of the steps was a thickly-barred iron gate. A heavy padlock and chain hung around the bars. “It’s locked.”
“Only if you try to open it.” She stood on a small stone at the foot of the bars. The gate clicked and the whole frame and padlocked gate swung away from the wall.
“Something your father told you?”
“That and other things.”
They stepped through and turned a corner. Thin shafts of light from the street appeared through openings in the gutters, barely piercing the gloom. A dark river flowed at his feet, leading into darkness. A narrow pathway hugged the wall, inches above the water.
“This way,” she said.
“You know where you’re going?” Montrose peered into the tunnel.
“The water always flows to the Seine. So, we go in the other direction.”
“To where?”
“Rue des Rosiers, no? For the diamonds?”
“Absolutely.” The sooner the better. They were closing in. “You know the way?”
“I don’t have to.” She pointed up to where the channel joined the main stream. “All the main sewers are as wide as the roads above, and they have the same street signs. You wouldn’t want to get lost down here.”
Montrose kept his head down and fell in behind her. The low roof was arched in cut blocks of stone, supported by carved columns. It reminded him of a crypt.
“I think we can get pretty close,” she said. “I know there’s an entrance not too far from the Rue des Rosiers. It would take us about ten minutes above ground. This will be quicker. And safer.”
“It goes all the way?”
She didn’t turn around. “Sewers like this cover most of the city and there are thousands of old mining works, even from the Roman age. Paris is built on a warren of tunnels. They used to have tourist boat trips down here until 1974. The sewers even have their own museum.”
Montrose shook his head. “Only in Paris.”
She stopped before a large metal grill in the wall. “We have to take a detour. Not all of the sewer walkways are passable. And it’s a shortcut.”
Montrose edged forward towards the grill where the empty eye sockets of a human skull stared back at him. He flinched, just stopping himself from slipping into the water. “Holy shit!”
“Don’t worry Connor, they’re all dead. Probably about six hundred years ago.”
He peered through into the darkness. “This is the catacombs, right?”
“No, this is an ossuary for the medieval church above. The grill is a run-off, in case there’s a flood.”
“Jeez. Don’t they bury anybody in Paris?”
“Of course, but space is tight. They had to empty the city cemeteries in the sixteenth century or they would have had no room to bury anyone else. Thousands of unmarked graves, mostly the poor and homeless. There are catacombs and ossuaries all over Paris, containing the bones of over eight million people. You can take a guided tour at the Denfert Rocherau catacomb.”
“Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe some other time.”
She leaned through the grate and placed her hand into the eye socket of a sk
ull. “But this one is not open to the public.” She pulled her hand back slowly, an iron key between the tips of her fingers. She turned it in the lock and pulled hard on the grate. It swung noiselessly towards them.
She smiled at him. “You first.”
This is freakin’ spooky. Where’s Scooby Doo when you need him? “Scared, eh?”
“No. I have to lock the gate behind us.”
“Ah, yeah, right.” He stepped through and his vision became a monochromatic nightmare of femurs and skulls. His eyes began to adjust to the darkness and he saw a narrow corridor lined with thousands of neatly stacked human bones, stretching away into the darkness. A drip of water splashed on the floor. He heard the gate close behind him.
“Straight on, Connor.”
He kept his arms tight by his side and walked down the line of skulls. Endless empty eye sockets watched his progress. The gloom was getting worse. He pulled the lighter from his pocket. The flame flickered eerily against the yellowing, dusty bones. “I can see better, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.” He stepped forward. “How many people are down here?”
“No one knows. They estimate the wall of bones may be fifteen deep. Either side.”
He noticed there was no echo and resisted the urge to turn around and look back towards the sewer. His feet splashed in small puddles, but all sound seemed to be sucked up by the bones. The narrow corridor began to drift left then turned a sharp right. In front was a wall of skulls. “What the hell?”
“Relax, Connor, keep going.”
He held up the light in front of the skulls and twisted left, spotting a small gap in the wall, just wide enough to squeeze through sideways. “You’re joking, right?”
“No, don’t go down there. That is not good.”
He turned around, holding up the lighter, moving his fingers as the metal began to burn. “This isn’t exactly Fifth Avenue either.”
She giggled and pointed in the other direction. “We go this way. Squeeze between the bones.”
He held the lighter at arm’s length and saw a small strip of darkness. “You’re freaking crazy.” The light showed a narrow gap less than a foot wide between a towering wall of skulls. “What about the other way? It’s easier.”
“No. the other way is . . . dangerous. This is under the church, but the other way leads into medieval mining tunnels. The corridors go around in circles for miles and the ground is unstable. And so are the bones. You could be buried alive. And they would have to dig through hundreds of thousands of skeletons to find you. And you know, I don’t think they would.”
“You know that?”
“Let’s just say some of the skeletons in there are not medieval.”
Helluva frickin’ choice. He turned to the dark strip between the bones. “Me first, yeah?”
“You’ve got the light.”
“Yeah.” He shuffled sideways into the gap, holding the lighter before him. He felt his nose brush against the bones and jaws of skulls jut into his back. The metal lighter began to scorch the tips of his fingers. He tried to bring his other arm forward, but his shoulder jammed against the bones. He tried to move the lighter in his hand, but it slipped from his grasp. The flame spiraled downwards and died with a hiss as the hot metal hit the wet floor.
“Shit!” He automatically tried to squat down to retrieve it, but his knees jammed hard into the wall. A squeak of dry bones rubbing against each other made his heart skip a beat.
“Attention!”
He could hear the panic in her voice.
“Don’t move the skulls. Just . . . don’t.”
He looked up into the darkness. If this lot comes down . . .
“Let me do it, I’m smaller.”
He felt her hanging on to his pants as she twisted down and her hand fumbled around his feet.
“Got it.”
He blew out a breath. Her hand slid up his leg, pressing the lighter against him. He reached down as far as he could and she slipped the lighter into his palm. He brought it up to his side and flipped it open, thumbing the flint wheel. It sparked into life and he saw the tiny skull of a child directly below his cheek. Fuck, I’ve had it with this place. “Let’s go.”
“It’s not far.”
He shuffled forward and could hear the running water of the sewer. At last. Never thought I’d be glad to see a river of shit. The corridor began to drift in a curve and a faint, grey light appeared. They came to an iron grate. “We’re here.” He shuffled to a stop in front of the wet iron. The grate was locked. “Which skull?”
“On the right. Pick one and I’ll tell you.”
He placed his hand in the nose cavity of the biggest skull.
“Two up, one right. In the eyes.”
He moved his hand along and poked into the eye sockets, felt the cold metal of a key. “Got it.” He tapped the skull with the key. “Thanks, buddy.”
“Connor! Have some respect. This is also a graveyard.”
“Excuse me.” He turned the key in the lock and stepped onto the narrow walkway, bordered by a fast flowing stream.
Charlotte locked the grate, then thrust her hand through and replaced the key. “This way,” she said and headed to the end of the walkway where the stream joined a large tunnel. She stopped at the corner. “Look.” She pointed up at a sign for Rue de Rivoli. “We’re below the main road.”
He heard the faint noise of traffic.
“You know that film?” she said. “Raiders of the Lost Ark?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s where they got the idea of a giant ball rolling to crush Harrison Ford. That’s how they used to clean the sewers.”
Montrose looked over his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, they don’t use it any more. This way.” She turned the corner into Rue De Rivoli.
The arched roof was higher and the water had picked up speed. “We’re under the Town Hall,” said Charlotte. “That’s the reason the sewer’s so big. They say there’s more merde generated there than in the whole of Paris.” Charlotte paused at a corner then headed left into a narrow tunnel.
Montrose caught a stained and rusting sign, nailed to the wall by his head. Rue Vieille du Temple.
“The old home of the Knights Templar,” she said. “This leads to Rue des Rosiers. We can get out there.”
“In the middle of the street?”
She scoffed at the idea. “No. I live around here. I know where they come out. I’m not going to be seen by my neighbors climbing out of a sewer.”
They came to a smaller channel entering from their right. Montrose looked up at the sign. Rue du Trésor.
“Treasure Road,” said Charlotte. “Many people think the Templars buried their treasure down here.”
“Have they?”
“Well, it’s got to be somewhere. It was never found. Though it hasn’t stopped people looking.”
He could see several holes in the wall that had been hastily filled with broken bricks and cement.
“Last time, they dug into someone’s basement,” she said. She stood at the end of the channel. “We’ll have to cross, so be careful.” She held up the hem of his raincoat and jumped to the narrow path on the other side.
Montrose looked across. There was hardly room for him to stand up, never mind jump. He squatted down and leapt over, landing in a crouch.
“Not far now,” she said.
He kept his eyes on his feet and almost walked into her as she came to a halt.
“This must be it,” she said, “It should lead into a courtyard off Rue des Rosiers.”
Montrose gazed up at the rusted ladder. “Use the coat to cover your hands. I’ll go first.” He shoved the heel of his shoe into the ladder and hauled himself up. At the top was a thick metal grate. It gave way with a push and he shoved it to the side. The sunlight stung his eyes and he squinted across a cramped courtyard then climbed out and reached down. “It’s quiet. C’mon, no neighbors are watching.”
She grasped his hand and pulle
d herself up.
They both took a few deep breaths. Montrose kicked the grate back over the hole. He looked down a short alley to the street at the end. A bicycle flashed past. “Is that Rue des Rosiers?”
“Yes. Where now?”
“It’s a small square, just off the street. Next to a café and a boulangerie.”
She looked up at him with disbelief. “Are you looking for Monsieur Stein?”
“You know him?”
“I’ve lived here most of my life. Of course I know him. He should have told me.”
Montrose said nothing. I should have known. They turned into the street. He glanced back and forth, but there were no cops.
“Down here,” she said and led him through a winding alley between the buildings. They emerged beside a café. Stein’s was on the corner.
Montrose crossed over and stood beside the door. “I didn’t expect to be back here quite so soon.”
She laughed and pushed the buzzer.
“Oui?”
Montrose was about to speak when Charlotte stepped up to the intercom.
“It’s Charlotte Marceau, Monsieur Stein.”
“Entrez, Charlotte.”
Montrose held the door, then followed her along the corridor. The old man looked up as they approached.
“Charlotte! What a surprise!”
“Bonjour, Monsieur Stein.”
The old man stood up from behind the desk. “I see you’ve met Monsieur Montrose. I take it you got my message.”
“Ah, no, I have been out all day. Don’t worry, I found him on my own.”
Stein grinned. “You must excuse me, Monsieur Montrose, I suspected your recent deposit was not entirely genuine. However, if you are with Charlotte then you are amongst friends.”
Charlotte kissed the old man twice on the cheeks and turned to Montrose. “My father made many friends in his life. Monsieur Stein has been very helpful.”
The old man laughed. “Whatever it is, I don’t want to know. Though I can see by your smile that you are going to make your grandfather very happy.”
“I’ve told him already. You should have seen the look in his eyes. It was incredible!”
“I’m so glad. Now, Monsieur Montrose, I imagine you wish to visit your box?”