Oh-oh. Ah, it was not good and there was so little time. They had to find the heiress and quickly, they had to find this other girl, this ‘companion’, but what, please, would they find? More corpses, the clothing not just …
‘Louis, that kid even stated, “This one is next. Sunday afternoon.” She wrote it on that bulletin board she keeps in her room. She’s got all the locations of the Sandman’s killings marked.’
‘Yet the crucifix and the knitting needle, they are locked away?’
‘From prying eyes. The aunt’s, if you ask me.’
‘A Sister Céline …’
‘That nun can’t possible be the Sandman. Hey, she doesn’t have the necessary physical equipment, idiot! Verdammt, use your head. We’re going to really need it this time!’
‘Then why lock those things away? Why try to keep them from the aunt?’
Louis was always asking difficult questions. ‘A schoolgirl’s world is very small. The nuns would have figured prominently in it,’ offered Kohler lamely.
‘Could Madame Vernet have gained access to that pencil drawer?’
Ah damn. ‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’
Well up in his sixties and nearing retirement, General von Schaumburg took his daily ride on horseback in the Bois near which he lived. Perhaps it toned him up and got the blood circulating, thought Kohler, but ah merde, he was too like something out of the last war. Tall and mighty and armoured in greatcoat and cap, the General sat astride his favourite gelding and let the horse blow twenty degrees of frost. A giant needing only a spiked helmet.
The blue-shaded railway lantern that hung from the pommel gave but a paltry light. The frigid air brought panic thoughts of mustard gas. There was even a ground fog to help things along.
‘Kohler, what are you doing with my pigeons?’
He had forgotten all about them. ‘They’re doves, General. White doves—at least, they were.’
‘Verdammt! don’t back-talk me, Corporal.’
‘It was captain, General. A Hauptmann.’
Oh-oh … ‘General, you were …’ began St-Cyr, only to hear the riding crop cut the air as it was raised. He continued anyway. ‘General, the child was not the Vernets’ niece but another. A case of mistaken identity and overanxious police. Nénette Vernet may well be a hostage of the Sandman, or dead. This we really do not know, for she and another friend are missing. But we must know, General, if you saw anything at all that might assist our enquiries.’
‘Mistaken identity? Overanxious police? Gott im Himmel, Kohler, what is this one saying?’
‘That préfet Talbotte and the Paris police need a damned good housecleaning, General. The flics glanced at the victim’s ID photograph and made a mistake that should never have been made.’
‘False papers?’
This was only getting worse. ‘A simple switch, General,’ interjected St-Cyr, wishing immediately that he hadn’t done so.
The riding crop cut the frost as it was lowered. Snorting, the horse fidgeted nervously. ‘Explain yourself.’ The French, thought von Schaumburg. St-Cyr … A pretty wife with carnal urges and films clandestinely taken of her fornications with Hauptmann Steiner, a favoured nephew of his own and an embarrassment. The Gestapo’s Watchers were apparently still enjoying the films in spite of orders to destroy them. The pigs.
Right in the middle of his thoughts, von Schaumburg muttered, ‘I sent Steiner to Stalingrad, St-Cyr, and now must bear the grief of his young wife and mother, which in no way excuses the disgrace our Erich brought to his family. Kohler, you have lost your sons. My condolences. War is never easy and always strikes the heart. Gentlemen, I saw nothing of this matter. I heard nothing. I was shooting. Ask that imbecile gamekeeper. If he had moved himself faster, I would have been gone from the area before the murder happened.’
All thought of Marianne and Hauptmann Steiner must be set aside. ‘But you weren’t, General,’ said St-Cyr, taking hold of the bridle. ‘The gamekeeper claims to have seen someone in a black or dark blue overcoat just before you took the last of your pigeons.’
‘There, you see, Kohler? Pigeons, Dummkopf! A dark overcoat—a nun perhaps? Is this what he saw?’
For now it would be wisest not to mention the wound badges, the Polish Campaign medal and the SS connection. ‘Not a nun, General. Apparently the sport-shooting has frightened away the good sisters from this part of the Bois.’
‘The Sandman?’ Again the horse fidgeted.
‘Perhaps. Please try to remember, General. The child was being followed and ran into the cage to hide. Her coat was dark blue, but—’
‘But … but that is exactly what the gamekeeper saw! The child.’
It would do no good to argue. As it was, they had got him talking, not ordering them around. Here was the man who issued the decrees that were posted and also published in all newspapers: For acts of terrorism on______and______, the following hostages have been shot.
Here was the man under whose authority fell the receipt of five million francs a day, the recently reassessed cost of the Occupation, since the country was now too poor to pay more. It was bad enough having to put up with the Germans, but having to pay for the privilege was far too much to bear, though nothing could be said of such things. Not yet. Not until the war ended, as it surely must someday to throw the country into an anarchy of a different kind. A totally French kind.
‘Kohler, what have you to report?’
The birds were handed over and hooked to the pommel. Quickly Kohler went through the briefest run-down, ending with, ‘Our investigation must first concentrate on finding the two missing girls, General. Perhaps they are together. If not, then perhaps Mademoiselle Chambert can tell us where the heiress is.’
‘And the Sandman?’
‘We’ll get him. We won’t stop until we do.’
‘Good. Anything you need is yours. The full backing of the Kommandantur. Extra men, supplies, communications and money, but not beyond reason and fully accounted for. Do not hesitate to ask. Indeed, I will see that a carte blanche is issued. Use it.’
A cup of coffee—the real thing—would do about now, a nice warm boiled egg with a knitted cap to keep it hot and cosy in the hands, a slice of ham … ‘We’ll remember that, General, but right now we need transport to our garage so that we can pick up our car.’
‘My driver will assist you. How is Vernet taking it?’
‘As well as can be expected. Relieved, of course, but … Doubtless he’ll fill you in.’ And so much for searching rooms without permission.
‘And his wife?’
‘Not well at all, General.’
That massive head was nodded sagely. The horse’s mane was patted. ‘Discretion, Kohler. Keep my name out of it.’
‘Jawohl, mein General. Heil Hitler.’
‘Don’t be an imbecile. Just see that it’s kept quiet. I’ll try to recall the afternoon. If there is anything, I will let you know.’
At a brisk canter, the General departed and they watched as his lamp winked in the night until the trees of the nearby wood finally hid him from view. Again it was so like that other war. Hermann was visibly shaken and could not speak for some time until at last he said, ‘Chez Rudi’s, Louis. Even detectives can’t keep running on empty stomachs and Messerschmitt Benzedrine. You did take yours, didn’t you?’ And then, ‘He made me think of the trenches. I was right back in the mud and shit hearing your shells whistling overhead and praying some son of a bitch like that wouldn’t come along to order us over the top.’
‘Me, too. I understand.’
‘I’ve got to call Giselle and Oona. I’ve got to tell them we’re back in the city. I’ll do it from the restaurant.’
And I? asked St-Cyr inwardly. With only an empty house and no wife or little son, the phone could ring all it wanted.
I must get those films of her from the Gestapo, he said to himself. I must destroy them so as to let her rest in peace.
‘I’ll do it for you, Louis. I swear it,’ said
Kohler, not even having to be told. ‘Now, come on, Chief. Let’s find that driver and get us our set of wheels. Hey, I might even let you drive your own car!’
Chez Rudi’s, a legend in its time, was on the Champs-Élysées and right across from the Lido. Beer-hall big and spotless, it was all but empty at this ungodly hour but would soon fill to overflowing.
Kohler chose a table to one side where Louis could watch that great big, beautiful Citroën traction avant the Sûreté had assigned him in 1938 and the Gestapo had taken away—well, almost—in 1940. He dragged over another chair and peeled off overcoat, scarf and hat, no gloves.
Blowing on his hands, he waved and waited. Rudi Sturmbacher’s youngest sister, Helga, was on duty but had just finished making a heavy night of it and took her time. One blonde braid refused to be tied. There was gravel under her puffy eyelids. The pale blue workdress was so incompletely buttoned large glimpses of her ample bosom, unhindered by any Bavarian or French soutien-gorge of starched cotton and elastic or otherwise, were offered as she ground herself into an upper corner of Hermann’s chair. Ah merde, thought St-Cyr. Like so many of the Occupier who dreamed of living like God in France, she had also come to Paris to find a man, but at the age of twenty-eight had discovered that sex was one thing, love quite another, and that war gave traffic only to such affairs.
‘Well, mein Schatz [my treasure],’ she croaked sharply at Hermann, ‘what can we do for you at this hour?’
Kohler wrapped a giant’s arm about her chunky hips and grinned up at her. ‘It’s a little too early for that, eh, Helga? But … two boiled eggs, a pail of black coffee, three fried slices of that ham of Rudi’s to remind me of home, melted cheese on top, brown bread, butter and none of that lousy approximate jam our French friends are so fond of but Rudi would never let within a kilometre of his establishment.’
She squirmed a little under his arm. She wished Hermann would really notice her. Approximate jam … the fake stuff the French had to eat if they could get it. ‘And for him?’ she asked, testily motioning with her pad and pencil.
‘He’ll have the usual. Two hot croissants, café au lait with real milk, and the plum jam with real sugar just to tell him we still make it the same old way back home and that all this talk of shortages in the Reich is merely lies, right?’
There was no thought of ration tickets here, an embarrassment that always caused Louis to edgily watch the street lest others be looking in. Others of the Resistance, ah yes.
‘Fräulein Sturmbacher, I will have the same as Hermann, please,’ he said in German that was really very good. ‘The gooseberry conserve if possible, as it is even more Bavarian to me and more piquant than the plum. We may not eat again for twenty-four hours, and here the food, it is always cooked to perfection and superb.’
‘Flattery will get you nowhere, pig!’ she hissed, tearing herself away from Hermann’s arm. ‘I really wish you two would agree before you dare to come in here. Now look what you’ve made me do!’
She tore off the page and, crumpling it, threw it at Louis. ‘French bastards!’ she shrilled. ‘You ought to shoot him, Hermann. How—how can you dare to work with the likes of him?’
Ah merde, what was this? wondered Kohler. Certainly more than a broken love affair, more than a last night before the latest boyfriend was shipped back to the front, leaving only promises.
In tears, she blurted, ‘If we have to feed him, let him eat in the courtyard.’
Kohler caught her by the arm. A button burst and then another. ‘Helga … Helga, Liebchen, what is it? The defeat at Stalingrad?’
She nodded, and when he pulled her on to his lap, she buried her face against his neck and wept uncontrollably. ‘The … the Wehrmacht are turning the air-raid shelters into machine-gun posts, my Hermann. The ones on the avenue Kléber, the esplanade des Invalides, here, too, along the Champs-Élysées. They … they are even going to cancel the horse-races at Longchamp this year and move them outside the city to Le Tremblay. Rudi … Rudi is asking them to put snipers on the roof in … in case of …’
She couldn’t say it, and when Hermann did manage, ‘A French revolt,’ she straightened up to fondly touch the slash down his left cheek and let a shudder pass through her.
‘General von Schaumburg and the others fear an uprising. They are preparing for … for the worst.’
Verdammt!
Even when their breakfasts came, there was still no sign of Rudi Sturmbacher, the Nazi Brown Shirt from Munich and great lover of gossip who, at 166 kilos, smouldered in his kitchens. Rudi had carved swastikas into the melted Gruyère that lay atop Louis’s Black Forest ham.
An uprising … a citizens’ revolt … Poor Louis stared at that hated symbol as Helga expectantly waited and watched.
Reaching across the table, Kohler took the plate and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got mine, Chief. I said I wanted the gooseberry, right, Helga? He wants the plum.’
They ate in silence as the SS regulars and others of the Occupier filtered in with their copies of Pariser Zeitung or the previous Saturday evening’s Der Angriff straight from Berlin and hot off the first Ju 52 of the day. They watched as workmen unloaded a Telefunken wireless set, lifted from a Rothschild villa perhaps, and set it up against the wall.
It was not yet 0800 hours Berlin Time and the city was still gripped in darkness, frost and, yes, distrust and fear.
‘Come on, Louis, we’ve got work to do.’
‘Don’t they care that we have murders to solve and that the Sandman is out there somewhere? Don’t they give a damn that a child and a girl of eighteen need desperately to be found before it’s too late?’
‘Of course they care. It’s only a matter of priorities.’
‘Then put on these gloves before that SS major notices I have relieved him of them. I hope they fit!’
They did. ‘Hey, you’re learning.’ Kohler grinned. ‘Das ist gut, mein Herr. Stick with me, and your fortune will be made.’
‘Sicherlich! Dummkopf. Sicherlich!’ (I’ll bet!)
Soot, garbage and clanking donkey engines gave to the port alongside the quai du Président Paul-Doumer the air of a busy place, but in truth, most of the river barges had been taken in the fall of 1940 for an invasion of England that had never happened and few had returned. Life on the river had gone on, ah yes, of course, but would it ever be the same? Impossible.
A mattress floated by, grey and ugly in the midst of the ice floes and rafting its crew of three terrified rats. A wooden crate was next, then a jersey, a man’s perhaps, but one so encumbered by encircling sewage it remained afloat only because of the gas bubbles and the condoms.
The house at Number 47 rose five storeys to shroud its broken-shuttered attic dormers and hide unfriendly slates and moth-eaten copper sheathing. Liline Chambert had had an assignation here at 2.00 p.m. yesterday. It was hardly the place for an innocent girl of eighteen from the provinces to venture alone. She must have been desperate.
‘Hermann, talk to the concierge. Leave the room to me.’
Though officially illegal and subjecting those involved not just to prison but to the threat of the guillotine, abortions could be obtained if one had the right connections and knew of a doctor and his clinic or hospital, but this …
‘The place bears every attribute of housing a clandestine abortionist, said St-Cyr bluntly.’
‘Then I’ll kick the door in and scare the hell out of the concierge.’
It would do no good to argue. ‘Please announce our presence.’
The glass shattered, the wood splintered. The door banged back and forth to screams and cries from within and then silence as they took the stairs.
‘Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central, to see the occupants of Room thirteen.’
Death would have a better voice, thought the woman. A giant …
Kohler swept his eyes about the cage. Her teeth were still in their foggy glass beside the armchair, leaking stuffing. Her cheeks were sucked in, the faded blue eyes watered instantly. ‘Messieu
rs …?’ she began, still concentrating on him as he reached over her head to pluck the ring of keys from their hook and hand it to his friend.
‘Sit down, madame. Just a few questions to start your day off. See that they’re answered truthfully. Otherwise you’ll spoil mine. Right?’
Yvette Grégoire crossed herself and wet her hairy lips in uncertainty. He was formidable, this one. Had she the courage to face up to him? ‘The magistrate’s order, monsieur.’ She snapped her ringless fingers. ‘Vite, vite.’ Hurry, hurry.
Hers had been a life of strife, penury and little joy, but he couldn’t let sympathy interfere. ‘You should have been a magistrate yourself, madame, but don’t be silly.’ He leaned a hand on a well-padded shoulder. ‘Sit down. It may be the last time you ever do.’
Kohler found two U-boat cigarettes and lit up, then placed one between her lips. ‘Now start talking. The girl in this photograph came here yesterday.’
Quickly her chest was crossed, her eyes refusing to avert themselves but staring up at him as if he had just come back from the dead.
‘Look, my partner’s difficult, madame. He has a thing about hatchet abortions. You may pray if you like, but if that girl is dead from shock or anything else, he’ll be demanding the guillotine for you.’
‘I did not see anything! I was taken to the public baths.’
This was a new one. ‘Explain yourself.’
Gestapo … he’s Gestapo, she cried inwardly and winced. ‘Once a month, on a Sunday, it is my practice to wash and tidy myself.’
He grinned but it was not a nice grin. He reached for her register and began to peruse it.
‘Monsieur …’
‘It’s Inspector. You stink too much to have just had a bath, and don’t try to tell me it’s the fault of a miserable cube of that gravelly ersatz “National Soap” they make out of ground horse chestnuts and lye.’
‘Inspector, the … the regular tenant was away in the north on business, so I … I have rented the room briefly to … to a Madame Proulx. A very suitable tenant. No trouble. Very quiet. A sweet lady in her middle years, a professional woman. Her …’ He was still not listening. Did he always doubt? ‘Her brother came to see her yesterday, and … and together they left the premises at …’ She indicated the register. ‘At four-thirty in the … the afternoon. Her … her son had been taken ill.’
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