‘Tread lightly, Inspector. That bordel is the largest of the houses that are reserved for your soldiers. It is large enough to cater to every indecent and shameful act. Its madam is a most formidable and impossible woman, a creature of the gutters herself who is sly and wilful and very wicked. If she gets wind of who you are, she may play along but only for a while. She absolutely detests the police and operates with complete impunity, having paid off the préfet himself but also having the sanction of the Wehrmacht, including that of the Kommandant von Gross-Paris himself. I give you fair warning. It is yours to have.’
But first they had to find the heiress.
4
‘BlEGELMANN,’ SAID ST-CYR SADLY, ‘ARON JACOB. Kahn, Adèle. Rosenthal, Marcel. Radetski, Leah …’
Vernet had said Liline Chambert had often of late found his niece here in the Jewish section of the ancien Cimetière de Neuilly and, yes, Nénette had been absolutely right, thought Kohler grimly. It was indeed the quietest place on earth next to the Bibliothèque Nationale. It was not two blocks from the Jardin d’Acclimatation and well within easy walking distance of the villa, school and church. But there was a problem. The Jews of Paris had all been taken. The Grande Rafle of 16 July 1942 had just been the start of it—the sealing off of five arrondissements by over nine thousand French police, not a German among them. More than twelve thousand terrified men, women and children, taken in the dark of that night alone, had been crammed into the cycling arena of the Vélodrome d’Hiver without sufficient water or toilet facilities. Eight days. From there they, and still others, had been bused to Drancy, and then the mothers and fathers had been sent by rail in cattle trucks to unspoken destinations, the children held for a time and then sent on themselves to God knows where.
When Louis and he had returned to Paris, Louis had patiently started piecing it all together. Talbotte, the préfet, had made money on the deal. Along with the SS, the Gestapo and the French Gestapo of the rue Lauriston, he had robbed the safe-deposit boxes, et cetera, et cetera, of those taken. They had really cleaned up, but the trouble was Talbotte now knew Louis had the goods on him. Apart from open hatred and outright threats to Louis’s life, the préfet’s cooperation would not be forthcoming. They were living on borrowed time.
‘Well, do we ask von Schaumburg to call out the troops to do a sweep of Neuilly and the rest of the city, Louis, or do we wait and hope the kid goes home?’
St-Cyr gestured impatiently. There were so many questions, so few answers as yet. Hermann and he had not been in the city more than fifteen hours, had not stopped since they had got off the train.
‘Is she out here freezing, Louis? Is she terrified and crying her eyes out—hiding from us, too? Is she in that synagogue down the street where the windows are all broken and the slogans scream from battered doors?’
Hermann was ashamed of what had happened to that synagogue and to so many. ‘Is she too afraid to go home, mon vieux,’ asked St-Cyr, ‘and if so, why is she afraid?’
‘Is she even alive?’ breathed Kohler sadly.
They began to search. They looked everywhere among the standing stones. There were no footprints in the snow … ah! too much had fallen, yet if sanctuary was needed, had the child not chosen well?
The thought brought only a silence of its own. Across the street, swastikas fluttered from several of the houses.
Andrée Noireau had written in her diary and Sister Céline had destroyed the thing. A knitting needle had been used in each of the four other murders and the child had had one in her desk at home.
All of the victims had been of about the same age, all schoolgirls but not all from convent schools, or had they been?
They simply did not know. They had yet to see the files on the other murders. When boiled down to its essence, did not everything hang on the contents of that child’s coat pockets? wondered St-Cyr. Could he not find the time to examine them thoroughly?
The girls had stolen a toy giraffe, but that had been during the first week of November, time enough for a crisis to build in anyone, let alone Sister Céline. None of the class had informed on the thief. But why had the child had it in her hand when attacked?
Nénette must have given it to her after they had switched coats, the class secret revealed at last, perhaps. But had they then used it to taunt the killer, and if so, was that person Sister Céline?
‘It can’t be her. It’s not possible,’ he said aloud to himself as he searched.
A ‘priest’ had called to take the abortionist away, and that could not have been possible either unless … unless perhaps he was someone connected to the brothel.
‘The child isn’t here, Louis. Shouldn’t we check the synagogue?’
Some crows took wing and they watched them fly to better pastures beyond the stone wall that surrounded the cemetery and shut it off from all else.
Hermann was always so impatient. The child seemed nowhere near. Could they leave things here and come back again? ‘I’ll do it now. Go and check the house on the rue Chabanais. See if Violette Belanger can tell us anything, eh? Perhaps Giselle can be of assistance.’
Giselle … Why must Louis continually remind him the girl would return to her ‘profession’? Always it was the same.
‘I’ll have to call home. Maybe she isn’t there. Maybe Oona can tell me where she is. Shall we meet at Chez Rudi’s later, or the Villa Vernet?’
‘Ah, I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Forgive me. Giselle is okay. Old habits and opinions simply die hard. Meet me at the morgue, I think. If I can, I will have Madame Vernet and that husband of hers on either side of Liline Chambert when I pull back the shroud. We will let the girl’s nakedness get us to the bottom of things.’
The children’s restaurant in the Jardin d’Acclimatanion overlooked a frozen lake and pond, where adults took advantage of the cold weather to skate alone, since the children were in school. It was getting on to 4.00 p.m. and the light was fast fading.
‘A tisane of rose hips, please,’ said St-Cyr. ‘No saccharin is necessary, but if you have a little honey …?’ Would it be possible?
‘Impossible, monsieur. I’m sorry but …’ The girl shrugged. ‘So many ask, it’s become a way of objecting. It’s like the croissant stickers the children secretly paste to the tables and chairs. A symbol of what we are missing.’
‘Please be careful what you say, mademoiselle. Ah no, I’m not one of them, but …’ He indicated the scattered clientele, many of whom were in uniform.
Her smile was grateful, and when she brought his tea, a tiny sugar-spoon of dark honey was tucked to one side. ‘It’s buckwheat,’ she said. ‘A soldier from Normandy gave me a small jar this morning even though I refused to go to the cinema with him.’
A larger than usual tip would be in order, and he wondered if he would have sufficient. Hermann was their banker, a position he had automatically assumed in September 1940, a keeper of their guns as well, until needed. The driver of their car also, of course. By now he would have paid a brief visit to the two loves of his life, both of whom shared the same flat with him. Ah! it was one of the Occupation’s little miracles that they got on so well. Giselle was a beauty of twenty-two, a fiercely independent and intelligent girl with a mind of her own, a girl Hermann had rescued from the profession, if only temporarily; Oona was a Dutch alien of about forty, a sensible and far more suitable woman, a realist whose husband the French Gestapo had questioned and had then buried in the Vélodrome d’Hiver to teach them a lesson, herself included, since the marriage had been mixed.
When his tea came, he filled the cup only halfway so as to keep the heat in the pot for as long as possible. Then he took out his pipe and began to stoke the bowl, the ‘furnace’, and when that was done, didn’t stop until he had laid out everything from the dustbin of that child’s pockets.
Two further items were set in the midst of the rubbish. A toy baby elephant from that same crèche, no doubt, and a child’s pair of glasses.
He shut his eyes, and ba
ck across the silk screen of memory ran the film of the inside of the synagogue, its altar and lamps smashed, the menorahs bent and twisted, the Torah unscrolled and defecated on and scorched, the stiff, leather-bound copy of the Talmud thrown into a corner to lie open amid the shower of prayer books, and the dark stained glass from the shattered windows above.
Some snow had crept in, and though one could look at it in any way one wanted, still there was a star-shaped pattern the child had drawn on the floor.
There were no footprints in its snow. None were easily definable elsewhere, but on a broken corner of the altar a battered lamp had been placed; on another, the glasses and the baby elephant.
Calling out, he had heard, and heard again in the temple of his mind, the echoing of ‘Nénette …? Nénette Vernet? Please don’t hide from me.’
Trust … How were they to gain her trust if she was still alive and free but afraid to go home?
A baby elephant the Reverend Mother had failed to mention, a pair of glasses Sister Céline had confiscated only to have them returned by the Reverend Mother … Nénette Vernet must have been wearing them.
The Lalique vial of perfume contained an old and superb scent ‘borrowed’, no doubt, from the aunt’s dressing table. The tiepin that had been stepped on was cheap and gaudy and not the sort of thing the industrialist would have worn. No, it wasn’t.
The gold fob from a first-communion ear-ring had definitely not been Liline Chambert’s, he felt, and could not help but see her in the cold hard light of memory, the girl lying on her back with her legs spread slackly and fists still clenched high up on her chest.
Five raisins, four of the gritty ersatz vitaminic biscuits, unfrosted and frosted marbles followed. Then the death’s-head cap badge, the two gold wound medals, the Polish Campaign medal and the silver tank battle badge, none of which he had before him since Hermann had confiscated them but all of which could never be forgotten. Ah no, of course not.
A spent tube of Mummy Brown. A toy giraffe. A crystal of clear quartz. A toy roulette wheel—he tried it and watched as he heard its little steel ball bearing bounce round and round until it settled on the three. Ah! he had never had any luck at gambling. Never! Was it an omen of more trouble to come? Should he have consulted the Tarot cards first?
‘I’m sadly deficient as a reader of them,’ he muttered. ‘Perhaps I ought really to consult an expert.’
The charm bracelet was missing one of its dogs. A poodle? he wondered. The poodle Pompon? Nénette Vernet must really hate that dog.
Back came the words of Madame Vernet in the freezing cold of the darkened garden. ‘I loved her as my own. We confided things in each other. She trusted me absolutely. The dog was hers … Actually, I have no love of dogs.’
And then, of Vernet, ‘I have to tell you how it was. He … he won’t let me say a thing. He’ll see that he does all the talking.’
In the change purse Hermann had recovered from the gamekeeper there were a few francs in tightly crumpled bills, perhaps two hundred in all, and several coins, both French and others. Some stray marks the heiress had picked up, a few pfennigs, a few lire, six guilders, four kroner, seven drachmas, a dinar and eight roubles—coins from all over Occupied Europe, and dropped or thrown away by the Occupier’s nomads, common soldiers and sailors mostly, on rest and recuperation. Some Austrian schillings as well …
A rubber condom … ‘The bordel, the house on the rue Chabanais?’ he breathed and, taking it out, saw it against the coins and the memory of the tank battle and cap badges.
The thing had been used some time ago and its contents had long since dried and become fast like glue. Regulation issue. Wehrmacht and a pale shade of flaccid and unbecoming grey but … but how had the child come by it? What meaning had it had for her? Was it something with which to taunt the good Sister Céline or to prove to classmates that the nun’s young sister Violette had fallen by the wayside?
Was Nénette Vernet the ringleader of the troubles at the school? She must have been.
Feeling decidedly uncomfortable, he tucked the thing back into the purse with the coins and suddenly remembered his tea. Ah! it was stone-cold.
The waitress came instantly with a fresh pot, and he knew then that he had been under constant surveillance. Not resisting the temptation to stare at the change purse, she said, ‘You’re a detective, aren’t you?’
‘It’s not hard to tell,’ he confessed, and, dragging out the carte d’identité, asked of its photograph, ‘Do you recall seeing this child?’
He had such large, moist brown eyes, this detective, and was so very worried. ‘That is Andrée Noireau, the child who … who was killed yesterday. It’s in all the papers. She often came here with her friend from school and … and sometimes with an older girl of about my age.’
The lights had come on but he hadn’t even noticed this until now. The black-out curtains had been drawn. ‘And the school friend?’ he asked guardedly. ‘Has that one been in today?’
Rapidly her head was shaken. An anxious glance was thrown at madame la patronne, who sat by her caisse leaving nothing to chance, including the talking to police officers who dangled used condoms above their teacups!
‘Please, you must tell me. It’s urgent.’
Again a worried glance was thrown at Madame. ‘But I’m not sure. I’m not!’ cried the girl.
Hastily she turned to leave, only to be stopped by the hand of the Sûreté. ‘Sure or not, mademoiselle, you must tell me now.’
It was his turn to look at Madame and he did it so fiercely Madame acquiesced with a curt nod.
‘I … I think I may have seen her up in the woods. She … she reminded me of a wolf that is afraid and half-starved, monsieur. One moment she was there, looking down towards the cage of doves, the next she was gone.’
‘When?’
‘Today at … at about two p.m. We’re never very busy on Mondays. I took a half-hour without pay for my lunch. I had to see where it had … had happened.’
‘What was she wearing?’
‘A red overcoat and beret.’
‘And was there anyone with her?’ he hazarded.
‘I … I think so. I do! But … but he was well behind her and … and I think she … she must have been running from him.’
‘A man in a black overcoat?’
‘Yes.’
Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, Hermann! he cried inwardly. Why are we not together when that is most needed?
From a block away, the bell of the Bibliothèque Nationale gloomily shattered the frost and brought the night down. It was 5.00 p.m. Berlin Time and the narrow pavement next to the house on the rue Chabanais was awash with a constant tide of battle-weary men fresh in for release. They did not joke or laugh or even grumble like soldiers and sailors on leave. Stolidly they smoked their cigarettes and waited, two by two in line, patrolled by tough Feldgendarmen with chains and miniature breastplates clinking softly against coat buttons and batons beating into mailed leather gloves.
Nur für Deutsche—Only for Germans, read the Gothic letters on a white signboard under a pale blue electric bulb that was caged in wire above a door that was now absolutely dark.
Several coughed. One nervous boy panicked and left the line. Immediately his place was taken by another.
Kohler was impressed by the control the Military Police exerted, but were they stationed inside as well? Were they standing on the staircase that must rise six storeys up the central well to attic dormers, no bed unused for more than a few moments? The girls ate, slept and lived most of their tiny lives in there, often doubled up for comfort and consolation in their off hours, sharing their tears, their colds and coughs or dreams and only going out now and then to see their pimps for an hour or two of coaxing or a beating, depending on the need to produce.
‘The day-shift is ending,’ whispered Giselle le Roy, and he felt the trembling in her, felt how terrified she was of this place. ‘Broken, my Hermann. Most of the girls who work here are finished after six mo
nths. Two I know of went mad after only a week. One killed herself in the bathtub with electricity. There were three German soldiers with her and it caused a terrible scandal. The General von Schaumburg had the house closed for five days and Madame Morelle carted off to prison, but the demand is so constant he was forced to back down and have her released. Now she reigns in triumph and they’re the best of friends. Ah! those few days she spent between sheet metal were far better than any medal he could ever have pinned to her.’
They were jostled by pedestrians, all of whom were forced to use the opposite of the street. Giselle’s cheeks were cold. As she clung to him, her lips quivered with each urgent kiss until she whispered at last, ‘Please be careful. Don’t ever force me to work in there.’
‘“Force you to work”? Hey, how could I do a thing like that to you or to anyone? Just wait in the café around the corner, eh? See what you can pick up. I want Violette Belanger’s pimp.’
This was not the first time Hermann had used her for such things, and none of those times had been very good. Ah no, they hadn’t. But this …? Her horoscope hadn’t been right. Her skin still crept. A killer with a knitting needle—the Sandman—ah! there could be no connection to the mackerel, the pimp, but still her apprehension would not leave her. ‘I will see, that is all I can promise, but if you feel the need to release your little burden in there because duty demands it, me, I shall try to understand.’
‘Hey, you’re the only one for me.’
‘And Oona, please? What of her? Is she not also the only one for you?’
They had been all over this too many times. ‘Relax. Aren’t I looking after both of you?’
‘You’re never home, and when you are, you are either too busy visiting les maisons de tolérance or sound asleep!’
Each time the door opened to let someone in or out, the black-out curtains hid everything but the impatient shuffling of cleated boots on uncarpeted stairs.
‘Sixty-seven girls,’ said Giselle tartly. ‘Twenty to a shift with seven in reserve and each will have between fifteen and thirty, maybe even forty slashes in Madame Morelle’s little book when her working day has ended. Even the graveyard shift here is busy, since at curfew the doors, they are locked and all must stay within, and that is when the fun really begins. Ticks also, yes, in lieu of slashes.’ She clucked her tongue and sucked in the breath of practicality as she tallied the take.
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