Dollmaker

by J. Robert Janes

  Kohler reached over the zinc to find the brandy bottle. Refilling the Préfet’s glass, he nodded curtly at it and waited while it was downed. ‘Now another and that’s an order. You’ve done what you can for tonight. Go home, get some sleep. We’ll pick up the pieces tomorrow.’

  Did he really believe such a delay was possible? ‘Then do us all a favour and watch that girl. Paulette may well be enjoying herself but freedom always has its price. I am certain she either knows where the money is or who stole it. They,’ he indicated the men and particularly the table where Kaestner sat with Baumann and the others, ‘may not be so patient with her as we would wish.’

  As Kerjean reached for his cap and gloves, Kohler asked if he had seen the autopsy report on the shopkeeper and saw him shake his head. ‘My assistant will have done so. I am sorry, but I had no time.’

  ‘Didn’t Louis say anything about it?’

  There was that shrug. ‘He was freezing, wet to the skin and had received several terrible blows to the back of the head. He was dazed and in a great deal of pain. We must get him to a doctor. Another of the pieces we must pick up, Inspector. Stubborn like our peasants and refusing absolutely to let me take him straight to the hospital here, but the concussion all the same, I think.’

  Kohler watched him leave then looked the place over. There was now no sign of the Captain or of Baumann and the boy or the Second Engineer. They had somehow left the party unnoticed and quickly. Even Death’s-head Schultz had vacated the table and others now crowded round it.

  When Paulette le Trocquer, breathless and radiant, came towards him, he had to grin and take her by the hand. Someone called Kay Kyser was singing something called ‘Playmates’. Then there was ‘Marie’ and then there was ‘I’m Getting Sentimental Over You’.

  But still there was no further sign of the Dollmaker and the others. None at all.

  It was now nearly 1 a.m. Berlin Time, Tuesday the 5th of January and some fifty-two hours since they had arrived in the area to begin the investigation. Parting the heavy green brocade drapes in Yvon Charbonneau’s study, St-Cyr looked out into darkness and rain. The clay pits would be awash. Another hour and where would he have been? Drowned by swallowing that thick, creamy milk of clay? Buried in it perhaps for ever. Yet it was not easy to be released from one trouble only to fall into another.

  ‘K and R,’ he muttered grimly. ‘Kämmer and Reinhardt.’

  He turned away but stood looking across the cluttered refuse, the hints at former lives so distant from his own. ‘The bits and pieces of lost millennia,’ he murmured, ‘and those of a doll.’

  In need of tobacco, he found a tin Charbonneau had used as a makeshift ashtray, and dumping it out, toasted the remaining contents of the Obersteuermann Baumann’s tobacco pouch over the fire. That everything should boil down to a doll was frightening. Emotionally exhausted by her fear that he would discover what she had done, the child had dropped off to sleep. The chaise-longue with its black lace and cream silk had become her bier. The finely chiselled face, with its large eyes closed, had become the face of innocence, but behind that innocence lay a hardness that deeply troubled.

  He stood a moment more trying to fathom exactly what she had done. The dolls up there in the attic had waited too, with breath seemingly held. All of them had watched her from the mirrors. Image after image had been repeated. Some had even overlapped themselves.

  They had watched him too, so much so that for a moment there he had been afraid to move for fear of frightening them. They were so lifelike.

  The Dollmaker, who could identify each maker’s bisque with his eyes closed, must have been all too aware that the fragments were not from a Jumeau, a Steiner or a Bru. He had given up the pieces readily enough during the interrogation which could only mean he had been satisfied they no longer posed a threat.

  ‘Then he must have known the doll would not be discovered.’

  In turn, this could only mean he had known Yvon Charbonneau had buried the briefcase and the pianist would make damned certain the doll was never found.

  ‘And Kerjean knows it too,’ he said, a whispered sigh. ‘He was so anxious to go after the pianist tonight. The doll is the key to everything. Its absence is crucial to the Captain but does Kerjean want it found so as to prove Herr Kaestner killed the shopkeeper, or does Victor want to be absolutely certain it is never seen again?

  ‘And what of Paulette?’ he asked. ‘Paulette either saw her father pick up the doll Angélique left in that shop or she brought it to his attention.

  ‘The Captain was to return from Paris on the following day. He would go straight to the clay pits. What better place to confront him, especially as he would then pay the house by the sea a visit?’

  Kaestner had waited a full twelve hours before reporting the murder, a long enough delay to clearly indicate he was protecting someone.

  Madame Charbonneau had been there at the time of the murder, as had her husband.

  When Hélène Charbonneau found him, the Chief Inspector was lost in thought and tobacco smoke, poring over the pages of her husband’s scrapbooks. There were news photographs of Adèle and herself with Yvon, and others of just the two of them sightseeing, shopping, buying dolls. She had not been able to destroy the clippings. Angélique had needed all the records of her mother and father she could accumulate. And myself? she asked. I could not bring myself to burn them even though Yvon wanted me to, but left the task to me as a reminder.

  ‘Vienna in the autumn of 1938,’ said the detective. ‘I wonder what it must be like there now. It was the city that, next to Paris, I loved and admired the most.’

  She waited, not knowing what to do or say. The long dark hair fell loosely over the shoulders of the heavy white flannel nightgown. The lovely hazel eyes were full of despair.

  ‘Salzburg,’ he went on, ‘the 24th and 28th of October. Then Munich on the 30th, Kâln on the 3rd November and Berlin, ah Berlin, on the 9th.’

  She clutched the throat of her nightgown and held it close. She must say something to him. She could not go down in defeat so easily. ‘Yvon would not travel without us. Like many artistic people, he was often insecure. He always needed the reassurance only the two of us could bring.’

  Several pages were turned. ‘Yet he went back to the Reich the following spring but only with Adèle, madame? Three concerts. One at the Opera House in Köln, another in Berlin and then Frankfurt.’

  ‘Things were very tense. Visas were so hard to get. I was ill. I had my shop to look after. I had to earn a living and make my own way in life. I could not go with them. If you will read the reviews, you will note that they were less than favourable. Yvon needed me as much as he needed Adèle.’

  ‘But you were never sexually intimate with him.’

  The crooked smile was brief, embarrassed and sad – ah, so many things.

  ‘I’m not denying he tried, nor am I denying I didn’t want it to happen. But Adèle – you had to have known her, Inspector. She and I were the dearest of friends. Inseparable, yes? Ah mon Dieu, men are such imbeciles sometimes. We had shared everything for so long, had been schoolgirls together. She was like a sister to me, the sister I had lost so tragically I can still remember how it was the day she drowned. Yvette … her name was Yvette and she was only ten years old at the time. Ten, the same age as Angélique.’

  Hélène Charbonneau tossed her head to indicate the attic roost. ‘I had my troubles, Inspector – a failed marriage, the shop that was always facing such terrible competition and needing something always. Fabric design is very demanding. Clients seem always to be needing reassurance and new and exciting things – at least they used to when I had the shop, but I left all that in Paris of course. We shared so much. I could go to her at any time with my troubles and she to me. I always put her between Yvon and myself and that is all there was to it.’

  ‘Until the blitzkrieg.’

  ‘Yes. Yvon fell completely to pieces. Somehow – God only knows how I managed it – I got the three
of us here but he had sunk into such a deep depression. Ah, you’ve no idea what it was like. He would not touch the piano but spoke increasingly of a symphony only he could hear among the standing stones and tumuli. My God how I hate those things. They’ve got to me too.’

  ‘You were married.’

  ‘Yes, in the fall of 1940. Yvon wanted it that way. I was quite willing to simply look after him and Angélique for the … the Duration of this lousy war the Nazis have thrust upon us. He wouldn’t go back to Paris. He blamed himself for having panicked like everyone else. He blamed himself for having taken the road and caused her death.’

  The reviewers had been unkind. A last concert had not gone well.

  St-Cyr closed the scrapbook and ran smoothing hands over its cover. She asked how his head was and offered two aspirins from her emergency supplies. ‘They are impossible to get now but …’

  She placed them between his hands. ‘I will make us some tea. Camomile, I think. I can’t sleep. I am so worried Yvon will … will do something stupid out there or catch pneumonia. I’ve taken a couple of blankets up to Angélique. She’ll be warm enough. You needn’t worry.’

  ‘You’ve always been very kind to her.’

  ‘It’s what a mother does, isn’t that so? Besides, every time I see her, Angélique reminds me of Adèle and of my sister.’

  Her eyes pleaded with him for compassion, and to tell her what the girl had said but he could not yield. She hadn’t liked his going through the scrapbooks. No, of course not. When one hides, one must be so careful.

  ‘The palm of your left hand, madame? A moment, please.’ He got up quickly and turned towards her. ‘It has been recently hurt?’

  ‘It … it was only a scratch. A few simple stitches – didn’t Angélique tell you about them?’

  He shook his head. ‘She told me about the ones you had sewn in your husband’s hand on the evening of the day of the murder. The palm … the ham of the thumb and a deep puncture. One much bigger than your own and still quite swollen.’

  ‘Yes … why, yes. I’m getting rather good at mending people. It’s what I do best these days, isn’t that so? At least it is what I try to do best.’

  If tapped, he felt she would shatter. Moisture had collected in her eyes. She fought to stop herself from breaking down and only succeeded through a supreme effort of will he had to admire.

  ‘I’ll make the tea, shall I?’ she said.

  He could not punish her by asking any more. ‘Please go into the kitchen, madame. I will join you in a moment.’

  On the night of 9th/10th November 1938, black-shirted and brown-shirted Nazi hoodlums had ransacked property throughout the Reich. Burning, looting, raping and arresting. Smashing so many windows, the sound of breaking glass could still be heard by all those of conscience.

  For a visitor such as herself it must have been an especially terrifying experience. Some said over twenty thousand had been arrested without cause on that one night alone. Innocent people taken from their homes and beaten in the streets. Looting, arson and murder. It had gone on for a week.

  All border crossings had been sealed. Her passport and visa would have been left with the hotel’s management. She, like so many, would not have known what was about to happen. They might even have had to drive through the streets.

  When St-Cyr rejoined her, Hélène Charbonneau was standing in front of the stove with the kettle still in her hand. She could not speak or even turn to look at him. She could only bow her head and let the tears fall freely knowing that they, too, would betray her.

  On the 16th of July 1942 in Paris alone, twelve thousand Jews had been rounded up. Others had quickly followed. They had poured in from all over the Occupied Zone. Now perhaps as many as forty thousand had been arrested. It was a number one could not yet put a finger on or completely comprehend the tragedy. Most didn’t want to think about it. Subsequently they had all been deported, even the youngest of children and separated from the parents. He had had no part in it. He had been out of touch on a case with Hermann, though he could not have done much except resign and go with them, yet he still felt guilty at not having done a thing. He had since taken steps to gather evidence against the perpetrators, particularly the Préfet of Paris, a dangerous thing especially as Talbotte now knew of it. A last case, a left fist that had exploded under the Préfet of Paris’s jaw when it should have minded its own business. A case of missing persons, of fourteen girls whose only crime had been a desire to become mannequins.

  The blitzkrieg, the isolation of the Breton coast and marriage to Yvon Charbonneau had saved her but only for the moment. She would have lived each day never knowing if and when she would be discovered. Never knowing when they would come for her.

  ‘Madame, please. Your secret is safe with me. I will do everything I can to keep it hidden, no matter the outcome of this investigation.’

  ‘It won’t be enough. Not after what Angélique did to me. Not after what has happened.’

  ‘Please tell me before it is too late.’

  She slammed the kettle down. ‘I can’t! I won’t! I mustn’t! You’re the detective. You figure out what happened.’

  Ah merde, she had burned both her hands. She still had one of them on the stove.

  ‘Paulette … Paulette …’ she cried. ‘Dear God, why did she have to do it to us? Why could she not have seen that Angélique was so unhappy?’

  There was still no sign of the Captain and his keepers. A vocalist named Bonnie Baker was belting out a song called ‘Oh Johnny’, and the Bar of the Mermaid’s Three Sisters was jumping. It was slosh time.

  Kohler found another cigarette and lit up. He’d take four more of the Benzedrine and that was it. They didn’t mix too well with alcohol.

  Still ravishing in her tight black skirt and turtle-neck sweater, Paulette le Trocquer was dancing with one of the boys from U-297. Though a little tipsy, she wasn’t so far gone her eyes didn’t seek him out at the bar for reassurance.

  ‘She’s wary and that’s good,’ he grunted and tossed down the pills.

  Bleary-eyed ratings, their middy-collars stained and rumpled, thought of home, slept sprawled over their tables or wantonly ogled the girls and threw lewd asides to their pals.

  Several fights had broken out. When there were so few girls to go around, what else was there to do? No one had been seriously hurt but sailors were sailors. Beer flowed and was spilled. Brandy and wine, the rougher the better, were downed as well with no thought of the day to come. The rush to the heads was constant. There were line-ups, distractions in there, much ribald laughter and encouragement. Ah what the hell.

  He felt like a grandfather on duty.

  One torpedoman, caught in the clasp of his girlfriend, had hiked her skirt and slip up her backside to show his pals that the painted stockings on her legs stopped at generously firm thighs. No secret now. She was too drunk to notice the whistles and catcalls until, entangled in her underpants, she took a swing at her boyfriend and hit the floor. Puke all over the place and wallowing in it, she got up slowly, teetered and dashed for the toilets.

  They gave her the run and they crowded in after her. Everyone heard the cheers.

  ‘Anblasten!’ (Blow tanks!)

  ‘Boot steht!’ (Boat steady!)

  ‘Boot steight langsam!’ (Boat slowly rising!)

  And then, as the song came to an end and couples looked towards the heads, ‘Folgen!’ (Track!) ‘Feuerlaubnis!’ (Permission to fire!)

  ‘Rhor Los!’ (Launch!) There was a huge cry from the men in there and then, in chorus, ‘Eins! Zwei! Drei!’ (One! Two! Three!)

  Pale and shaken, the shopkeeper’s daughter took the bar stool next to him and sipped his beer. ‘They are pigs,’ she swore. ‘Oh mon Dieu, what am I to do?’

  ‘Stick with me, I think.’

  One by one the Captain’s keepers began to filter back into the party. They came via the front entrance and there were six of them. Baumann … the boy, Erich Fromm … the Second Engineer… an
d three others. Tough … Verdammt! were they the flotilla’s champions? They did not sit together but lost themselves among the tables.

  The cook was the last to arrive and he stayed nearest the entrance, leaning against the wall in darkness like a petulant shadow.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Kohler. ‘A friend has just arrived.’

  Taller and bigger than most, the detective headed straight across the dance floor and she watched with dismay as he dodged fluidly among the couples until, at last, he had reached the cook.

  ‘Death’s-head,’ she whispered distastefully, ‘you are not the reason I am here, idiot! The Leutnant zur See Huber has left me to take the telegraphist Elizabeth Krüger back to base, the Ensign Becker is sick. You can have your stockings back. I don’t want them.’

  Gone were the promises of better things. When Herr Kohler’s beer was done, she asked for brandy and kept it near, for it would sting the eyes and she wasn’t going to give them what they wanted.

  8

  It was now perhaps three in the morning. The Chief Inspector was very worried. As he carefully spread antiseptic cream over the strips of gauze for her burns, Hélène Charbonneau could see that his mind, though concentrating on the task, was rapidly fitting the pieces of the murder together and leaping ahead to their inevitable conclusion.

  At a sound – a loose shutter upstairs – he stopped so suddenly she felt the instant of alarm. He relaxed. He said, ‘I had best go and close it, madame. A moment, please.’ It would only shatter the window-panes if left – she knew this was why he hurried away.

  ‘He thinks I will remember Kristallnacht. He is conscious of my feelings and afraid I might panic’

  A roll of gauze, a pair of scissors, a lighted candle on the kitchen table between them, and one already bandaged hand later, she had told him nothing further. He had not pushed. He had only been kind and was therefore a very difficult adversary. ‘He will uncover the truth,’ she said sadly, and reaching out, held her bandaged hand just above the candle flame. ‘Yahweh, I was never yours. As a family, my grandparents and parents had put You from us. I really didn’t think much about it – I was away at school so much and just like the others. But now You have come to reclaim us. It isn’t fair. Angélique never suspected it of me before Adèle was killed because the matter never came up. My maiden name wasn’t even Jewish because my grandfather had changed it. But of course it was all there in the records and of course I had to have help in hiding.’