But had it been like that? Were there not other pieces to fit into the thing? The Préfet for one?
The line had come to a stop. The Renault appeared out of the fog, sitting just as they had left it, at the side of the road.
‘Jean-Louis …’
‘Victor, I am asking you to trust me, even as I am now asking you, madame, and you, monsieur. Either one of you killed le Trocquer or none of you. We will return to the house but I must ask that you give me your word not to try anything.’
‘What good is the word of a killer?’ asked Kerjean bitterly.
‘You will sit in the back, Victor. Madame, get in the front passenger’s seat. Monsieur, please drive carefully. This gun will be on the three of you and I will not hesitate.’
‘Then Victor will only try to get you to kill him,’ said the woman sadly.
‘And that is why, madame, I must put these bracelets on him. Préfet, I am sorry for the humiliation and the apprehension they will cause, but I cannot have you dead before giving the guillotine its final answer.’
‘You’re a fool! You always were a stuffed shirt! Answering the guillotine? Pah! Then ask yourself about the Dollmaker. Ask what he would do?’
The handcuffs were secure. ‘I already have and I know exactly where he is.’
‘And Angélique?’ asked the woman. ‘Where is she? Please, you must tell me. I’ll never forgive myself if anything has happened to her.’
‘At home among her dolls on the chaise-longue where you were to have poisoned yourself.’
The sound of the car was lost in the fog but then it came to them again and Schultz heaved a grateful sigh. ‘The Captain,’ he said. ‘We’ll let him decide what to do with you.’
The cook rolled down his side window. The sound of the car grew at a bend. It was negotiating the first of the alignments. Almost imperceptibly Kohler began to lower his hands towards the steering wheel. Anything was worth a try. There was a Beretta strapped to his left calf and just itching to be fired. ‘Look, why not get out, eh? He’ll squeeze right past us. He’ll only think you boys were too pissed to continue and decided to sleep it off.’
Schultz hesitated. He couldn’t seem to make up his mind, but at last he said, ‘Don’t try anything. You first. I’ll follow. Take it slowly.’
‘Just let me tie my shoelace.’
The cold muzzle of the pistol was pressed hard against the back of Kohler’s neck. Some glass fell from the side window and they both heard it hit the running board as the door opened.
Once on the road, Death’s-head made him raise his arms. ‘Now we wait and you can count the seconds.’
The car came on but the sound of it seemed to come from all directions until, suddenly, there it was out of the fog with its headlamps staring at them and its engine still ticking over.
‘Hey, I’ve seen that car before,’ quipped Kohler gratefully. ‘It’s Préfet Kerjean but he’s not at the wheel.’
Schultz didn’t like it. ‘Get back in the lorry! Don’t fuck about.’ He grabbed an ear but it refused to budge.
‘The woman’s with her husband. My partner’s getting out. If you shoot me now, my friend, he’ll nail you right between the eyes. Fog or no fog, that one can hit a flea on a whore’s ass at twenty paces and not even touch the skin.’
‘All right, we’ll see what they have to say.’
‘Then let me tie my shoelace. I wouldn’t want to trip and have you hot shots start firing.’
‘Hermann, is that you?’ came the call of a blind man who could see well enough.
‘Yeah, it’s me. That shoelace is busted again. Ah Gott im Himmel, Louis, the lousy bastards who make them should be shot.’
Schultz felt the Beretta jammed under his chin. ‘Don’t,’ breathed Kohler. ‘We wouldn’t want to spoil our dinner, especially not when we’ve got the cook with us.’
The chicken soup was good, the tinned ham from Alsace superb when fried with chopped, boiled potatoes, green onions, tomatoes and a sprinkling of basil. Not turbot or sole or oysters, ah no, of course not, thought St-Cyr, but beggars could not quibble. Schultz had had the ham and the dried soup mix, both staples of U-boat fare, in a box under the seat of the lorry. There was real coffee too, not the meagre three beans of authenticity Vichy doled out on top of every bag of the ersatz stuff that, even though it was so lousy, was still labelled ‘coffee’ and still rationed to half a kilogram per month per family.
Everyone had partaken of the meal, some not tasting it at all but eating it as people did these days, never knowing if it would be their last or someone would steal it hot off the plate.
They had cleaned themselves up and wore dry clothes that had been parcelled out by the pianist. Now the lines above the kitchen stove were once more heavily draped, and his shoes dripped the last of their run-off on to the hot iron.
Hélène Charbonneau’s hands had been attended to. The child sat between her and the husband. Schultz was beside Hermann who would translate when necessary. The Préfet was at the other end of the table from the Sûreté. Out of deference, the bracelets had been removed.
Now all were waiting for the Sûreté to begin. He would light his pipe and take the time to contemplate each of them with one notable absence, that of the Captain.
The woman met his gaze steadily and did not flinch, so much so, that he could but find admiration for her and wanted to say, Be at peace. My partner and I will help you all we can.
But, of course, he could not do so. There were now two further murders to consider.
Unable yet to view the bodies of these latest victims, he could only trust to Hermann’s incomplete remembrances of them.
Contrary to what both he and Hermann had come to believe, when faced with the gravity of the situation, Yvon Charbonneau had revealed an acceptance of reality that was sobering and far from the symphony he heard and the megaliths he searched.
Kerjean did not turn away from meeting his gaze either. They were three very formidable adversaries.
Death’s-head Schultz was the fourth. Only Angélique bowed her head and moved her lips silently in a prayer for absolution.
‘Good. Now let us begin,’ he said, removing his pipe just long enough to motion at them with it. ‘The key to this whole business is that one must think as the Dollmaker did. One must have the Allied freighter or troopship right beneath the intersection of the cross hairs.’
Kerjean asked for a cigarette. Charbonneau lit it for him. Schultz, if ever such a man could do so, remained impassive.
‘Herr Kaestner,’ said Louis, ‘could not allow the crew who held him in such high regard, to find out that he had been having a love affair – excuse me, please, madame, for calling it that – with a Jewess, no matter how intelligent, kind or beautiful she was.’
‘Death’s-head couldn’t have them finding it out either,’ snorted Kohler, watching them all closely.
‘Ah, yes,’ acknowledged the Sûreté, ‘loyalty to one’s captain is to be respected and it is much to your credit, Herr Schultz, that you kept what you saw on that doll to yourself. Believe me, it is.’
Both hands were placed on the table as if to lift it out of the way. ‘If you’re trying to grease me with margarine, forget it. There is still a higher court even than Gestapo Mueller in Berlin. I also didn’t kill anyone.’
‘Please, a moment, yes? Don’t be difficult.’ Again St-Cyr looked round the table at each of them. ‘Herr Kaestner knew of the telescope, isn’t that correct, Angélique?’
The whispered yes was barely audible, her fingers studied with a concentration that begged forgiveness. She had really done it this time, she thought. Oh mon Dieu, but she had!
‘Then on the 5th of November, he knew for sure of the real reason for my visits to this house,’ sighed Préfet Kerjean sadly.
‘Money was missing,’ said the pianist with a gravity that implied complete understanding and awareness of the outcome. The dark brown eyes were much saddened by life’s little realities and looked down at th
e table as if puzzled but accepting of them, tragic as they were.
St-Cyr could still not help but imagine him at some concert.
‘A lot of money,’ said Hermann gruffly. ‘6,000,000 francs we still haven’t seen.’
‘And aren’t likely to,’ grunted Schultz in good enough French. They were all surprised. ‘What did you do with it, Préfet?’
‘Paulette …’ began the child, her voice so faint it broke.
‘Paulette knew who had “borrowed” the money,’ went on Schultz. ‘She wasn’t about to say and she died to keep her silent, didn’t she, Préfet? Vati wouldn’t have killed her. We didn’t, so that only leaves you. And don’t tell us the pianist rode that beat-up old bicycle of his all the way to Quiberon. You drowned her, you smug bastard. You killed her and her mother.’
Men like Schultz were always liars. ‘She was violated repeatedly. Did I do that also?’ asked Kerjean.
Tough … Nom de Dieu, he could be a brawler when needed, thought St-Cyr.
‘I’m not so sure she was violated,’ hazarded Kohler apologetically. ‘Hey, I didn’t take a look where I should have. I just assumed she’d been.’
‘The child,’ hissed Madame Charbonneau. ‘Her ears, messieurs!’
‘One of the sardiniers did not return,’ whispered Angelique, and never mind her hearing things she shouldn’t but knew all about. ‘Money changed hands. A lot of money.’
‘Angélique … Chérie, you must not speak. Herr Schultz is … is not one of us,’ pleaded the woman desperately.
The cook grinned and let his eyes dance over her. ‘In that you are correct, madame. Vati didn’t know what you were but now he does.’
‘And that,’ sighed St-Cyr, ‘is exactly what I meant when I said we must think as the Dollmaker would. He learned of the missing money and the absent sardmier – every one of U-297’s crew heard of it when they returned to base on the 5th of November. He knew of your repeated visits, Préfet, of your interest in using the telescope. He decided to wait. He would not be too concerned about the missing money until he had gathered all the information needed and had the target clearly in focus.’
‘And was within 500 metres of it,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Just what he would have done had Angélique not taken that doll into the shop, we’ll never know.’
‘The Star of David,’ said Préfet Kerjean sadly.
‘The yellow star,’ replied Schultz with a grin as he again sought out the woman, though she found within herself the will to look steadily at him.
St-Cyr flicked a glance at Hermann. Hermann never let him down. Always he was ready – seemingly relaxed, the Walther P38 in its shoulder holster once again, the Beretta he had pocketed in Provence on another case, resting untended on the table before him as if forgotten.
‘Préfet,’ said the Sûreté suddenly, ‘you searched for Monsieur Charbonneau and many times brought him home.’
The gun was being used as bait, even a fool could have seen this, thought Kerjean. ‘I did it as a friend, Jean-Louis.’
‘Yes, but you also did it to keep tabs on Madame Charbonneau and the Captain. My question, though, and it can be answered by her husband also, is did the two of you ever share a package of American cigarettes?’
‘Several times,’ said Charbonneau. ‘We were both given them from time to time, myself most often.’
‘Good. And did you ever leave a handkerchief in Victor’s presence, madame?’
‘I shed lots of tears. I did not know if I could stand things much longer.’
‘Please just answer the question.’
‘Then hundreds of times. Will that be enough?’
He ignored the bitter outburst. ‘Monsieur,’ he asked of Charbonneau, ‘where did you leave your bicycle on the morning of the murder?’
It was coming now, and she did not know if she could stand it.
They exchanged a glance, the two of them, then Charbonneau said, ‘In the shed where I always left it when I went to that place.’
‘And the Captain knew of this?’ he asked.
‘Yes. We … we spoke now and then. I knew he was seeing Hélène but …’
‘But you could not have openly challenged him for fear of trouble even though you hated him for what he was doing to your wife. You needed somewhere quiet.’
The pianist turned to look at the woman and as he did so, his hand went out to cover hers. ‘Hélène, you must forgive me. I should have talked it out with you. Together we could have explained things to Angélique.’
‘I don’t need anyone to explain things to me!’ seethed the child, scowling at the table.
‘I think you do,’ cautioned the Chief Inspector quietly. ‘Let us hope we have the opportunity but let us return to that shed.’
Drawing on his pipe, he gave it a moment. Schultz had sat up stiffly and that was good. Charbonneau had pushed himself away from the table a little. ‘Madame, you arrived in great haste. Automatically you went into the shed because you knew your husband always left his bicycle there.’
‘Yes. I … All right, I left mine leaning against his. There, does that satisfy you?’
‘Hélène …’ blurted the pianist, his look so desperate it flicked to the pistol and for a moment he could not tear his eyes from it.
‘Madame, the man you heard challenging Monsieur le Trocquer spoke French, did he not?’ asked St-Cyr.
The depth of sadness in her eyes said, Please don’t betray us.
‘Yes. I… I didn’t hear all of it. I … I can’t say how fluently it was spoken.’
She threw a glance at Schultz. Kohler had to shout inwardly, Bad French, madame? Was that it, eh?
Schultz had twice let his gaze pass swiftly over the Beretta, weighing up his chances. But so, too, had the Préfet and the pianist.
‘What, please, did you hear?’ asked Louis.
She must not tell him. ‘I … I can’t remember. I’m sorry but … but it all happened so suddenly. I was terrified. Monsieur le Trocquer would not listen to me. He was going to tell Johann. I knew I would be sent away, that no matter how much Johann might once have felt for me, he would not only hate me but loathe the very thought of having ever been intimate with such a one. I’m not vermin. I’m just a human being like everyone else.’
‘Schultz, take that grin off your mug or I’ll wipe it clean.’
‘Hermann, please! Let’s get to the bottom of this.’
‘The Dollmaker killed him, Jean-Louis, and that is why I arrested him,’ said Kerjean gruffly.
They looked at each other. ‘Ah no, Préfet, not quite. Please, you had much to hide and to protect, and Monsieur le Trocquer, in exposing Madame Charbonneau to the Dollmaker, could free himself of the loss of the money and only expose yourself. You warned Madame Charbonneau of trouble but refused to assist her in any way because, Victor, you were in too much of a hurry. You knew she would try to find her husband but you also knew they would not silence that shopkeeper before he spoke to Herr Kaestner. They were far too gentle, far too soft for such a thing, isn’t that correct? Remember, please, she did not know of the doll until confronted with it.’
Ah damn the Sûreté, damn Doenitz. ‘You will never prove I killed him.’
There was that curt nod Kohler knew so well. ‘You didn’t tell us of the shed, Victor,’ went on the Sûreté. ‘You claimed not to know of the bicycle tracks. You let us find the handkerchief and the cigarette package you placed in that shed so that we would be led to the affair between the Dollmaker and Madame and would suspect the Captain or the pianist but not yourself. Never yourself. You “borrowed” the money, but kept that to yourself and Madame Charbonneau. You argued with that shopkeeper violently, I believe, just as Paulette told me. You tried to warn him off but he refused to listen. He had now the opportunity to get back at you for putting the squeeze on him, and he wasn’t about to let you forget it. Not for a moment. Paulette must have overheard the whole thing.’
‘I did not kill that girl, Jean-Louis, nor did I kill her mother.
The Captain was at the shop when Madame le Trocquer died. Herr Kaestner had a spare key to that cell of his and the use of a car.’
‘But no one knew of that key except yourself, Victor, and the Fräulein Krüger – she can be asked. When confronted with the matter, she will tell us. But in any case, I think you left it handy and she picked it up. You came back for it probably, but she denied knowing where it was.’
‘Pah! You’re crazy. The Captain killed them to protect his … his precious sense of “honour”.’
‘No, Victor. The Dollmaker knew exactly what you would do. He needed the mother and daughter dead – yes, yes, of course – to protect his reputation. He did leave his cell using that key after the others had returned him to it from the party. He found the body of Paulette and then that of her mother. Before this, he went straight to this house to leave a little something for Madame Charbonneau. Please, I have it here and fortunately it did not get wet.’
Opening the crumpled handkerchief he had used to protect it, St-Cyr tumbled the tiny white pill on to the table.
There was a moment of silence as they all looked at it.
‘He then went back to his cell, Victor, knowing you would also take care of Monsieur Charbonneau because you had to.’
‘I didn’t kill anyone, Jean-Louis. I’m not a murderer. I’m a policeman, damn you!’
Mentally St-Cyr ran through the sequence: the woman’s catching up with Le Trocquer on the railway spur, her backing away, the altercation she overheard – the Préfet – the killing, her dropping the doll at the sound of the switch-bar, her tremulous viewing of the body and race to leave the area all the time feeling someone else, someone she did not know but only sensed – Herr Schultz – was watching her.
The husband quickly recovered the doll and the briefcase. The Captain, having caught sight of the woman or perhaps her husband, came along the railway spur to set his satchel aside and then find first, the fragments of bisque. He left the tracks and then found the body. He waited. He turned in the alarm twelve hours later. He knew the woman and her husband had been there but he also was convinced Kerjean had taken the money.
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