Probably but … ‘Charges will have to be laid regarding the black-market dealing, there’s no question of it. It’s only a matter of who gets them, the lampistes or the big dealers.’
Underlings were often convicted to soothe the press and the public, but the courts seldom touched others, it being too difficult, they knowing far too many who would speak for them. ‘Kohler, you’d better caution this one. The Banque Nationale de Crédit et Commercial is not in the business of the schwarzer Markt and never has been. Mein Gott, you two, what’s a few things? Deniard was probably thinking of his mother who is always bitching about how hard it is to get things. Paquette would simply have gone along with him. It’s an isolated incident. Set it aside for the sake of the families. I’ll have the boys here take whatever it is over to the Hôpital Quinze-Vingts for the blind. They’ll be more than delighted and we’ll let the whole affair lie.’
Yet another pair of snake eyes didn’t help. ‘Louis, I think he’s got a point. Why lay more grief on the families when they’ve enough to handle?’
‘It’s a matter for the courts, Hermann.’
Had Kohler seen something he shouldn’t? wondered Bolduc.
‘Louis, he didn’t have anything to do with it and we’d never be able to prove otherwise. Let me talk to Boemelburg. He’ll clear it, no problem, then we can just deal with the murders.’
Merde alors, what was this? wondered Bolduc, refilling Kohler’s glass. Cash was certainly not being hinted at, not with these two who were known for their honesty and the trouble they could cause, but perhaps Kohler had seen that he would simply go to the Höherer SS Oberg, since the bank did have its friends and Oberg was definitely not one of theirs. ‘You should get yourself another pair of dice, Chief Inspector. Those are so worn you keep tossing the same things.’
A seven and then an eleven landed, but was Bolduc now willing to back off himself? ‘Dice are far too scarce. Last year’s Aktion for the Reichsmarschall Göring purchased thousands of pairs including, if I remember it correctly, 877,000 decks of playing cards.’
And all for German armaments workers to brighten their Christmases, thought Kohler, along with equal numbers of nailfiles, clippers, combs, bottles of hair lotion, pipes and pocket knives, and good for Louis. Bolduc had been distracted.
‘Monsieur,’ said St-Cyr, ‘we understand that the van was due back here on Thursday but that you felt the bank should give René Deniard and Raymond Paquette a little more time.’
And damn Yvonne for having said such a stupid thing. ‘As I’ve already told you, Chief Inspector, it was an end-of-the-month pickup. Sometimes our branch managers need a little extra time simply because our major clients, all of them businesses, need it to tally the cash and get those deposits in.’
‘Three days of it?’ asked Kohler.
‘It’s a Saturday, is it not?’
‘Two days then, assuming that they wouldn’t have arrived back in Paris until just before midnight Thursday.’
These two were dangerous. ‘I was very busy with other matters and might have tossed off the comment. Besides, such a responsibility is always delegated.’
And Yvonne Rouget was bound to hear of it a little later.
Out in the courtyard while waiting to be given a lift back to the bank, since Grégoire was to take care of listing everything in the van, including the cash that had been left, Hermann turned his back on the garage and, keeping a hand well out of sight of any chance watchers, opened it to what he had collected.
It was a mousetrap with a once healthy mouse, the cheese still firmly in its jaws. ‘Let’s hope he was convinced, Hermann, and that he doesn’t empty the storeroom or rooms before we can have it done for him. His set-up is admirable and he must have all the dealers and underlings he needs, and certainly those three days of extra time suggest that he knew far more about that van than admitted, but for now, me to Monnier with the shoes and on foot, you to the Citroën and then to Oberfeldwebel Dillmann.’
Unlocking the back door of the van, Kohler simply said, ‘I’ll just take a few things and a little Schmiergelder to open that one up, but will write it all down.’
Shoe-saver, with the painted storm clouds and fork lightning, would do, felt St-Cyr of the vélo-taxi he would hire.
Plucked from the place de la Bastille’s stand, Henri Vincent looked this one over, for Sûreté was written so clearly it would not have influenced the judgement had the vache been naked. ‘Six francs the kilometre, ten if it’s too far.’
The inevitable dead fag-end clung to that lower lip. ‘Don’t take to the streets at the least impulse like your forefathers must have. I’ll agree to seven with a tip you won’t forget.’
A zéro probably, but it was still early and the district was not inclined to hire anything if it could be avoided in these days of hyperinflation. ‘Where to?’
‘Not far at first. The Passage du Cheval-Blanc, but go back along the Faubourg Saint-Antoine then duck into the Cité Parchappe to find that passage and turn left on it. Having let me off, continue but go north on the rue de la Roquette.’
And all of it relatively close, so this one, he knew the city well enough, but he wasn’t finished.
‘Continue past the women’s prison to the five stones where the widow-maker*—or the widower, in this case—used to stand as a reminder. Wait there five minutes then continue on to the boulevard des Capucines and Banque Nationale de Crédit et Commercial.’
Dieu merci and news of that bank-van robbery and murder everyone else at the taxi station had been talking about. ‘How many are to be led astray?’
‘As many as possible. I’ll deal with the rest while following you in another taxi.’
This one might or might not do that. ‘A hundred francs with a tip of fifty.’
Hermann would have said give him two hundred, but having grown accustomed to his ways, and having also flattened those tires earlier, which would but guarantee their being followed if possible, he had better say, ‘One fifty it is.’
Taking the necessary from a wallet that was so mended with fishing line his mother must have given it to him, this Sûreté climbed into the back and when he had judged it appropriate, vanished, but these days, felt Vincent, one could argue with the conscience, if one had one, and return to the stand having pocketed the cash. But then, too, there had obviously been a need for assistance and improving the criminal record by having helped could never hurt. Besides, he’d have lots to talk about and such would bring its stream of urging fags, though maybe silence would be the wiser.
Monnier was to the west of the avenue Matignon and on the south side of this oldest of faubourgs, felt St-Cyr, and near the corner of the rue Montaigne.* Here there were luxury-filled galleries, antique and jewellery shops, ladies’ clothing, too, and men’s. Just to the east were the haute couture and perfume houses, all still doing a roaring business. A pavement of the bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie aisée, the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré was like no other in Occupied Europe, it was said. Window shopping was, of course, the order of the day. Strolling Germans in uniform, many with their petites amies, seemed to be everywhere in Hitler’s showplace to the world of what a German-occupied city could really be like. And as if that were not enough, October, which was truly Paris’s loveliest, had let the sun enter to prove it, for many had already removed their coats. Made-over suits and skirts or blouses and sweaters some might be, but all were of quality, and with lines painted up the backs of the leg-wash to give the lie of silk stockings, the skirts were now cut to knee length. Handbags were of prewar leather, les chapeaux of autumn’s snap-brim cut with more delicate touches of dried flowers, imitation fruit or feathers than in summer, and as for the sounds of the traffic, one was struck by the utter absence of blaring horns and squealing brakes. Even the cyclists were quiet, though the agent de circulation with white baton blew his whistle as shrilly as usual.
Shoes were ta
stefully displayed and exclaimed over by window-shoppers. While many pairs had the regulation wooden soles, or the evening’s glass, and there were straps instead of full leather, others were being constantly pointed at. Of Parisian last and style, with the one strap, the high heels were very similar to the those that were tucked deeply in his coat pockets, yet at 6,000 francs the pair, they were half the annual salary of a school teacher and 40 percent of this Sûreté’s.
Entering the shop, the aroma of good, sound leather was all too present. Seemingly bound to constant motion, the dominant salesman was wearing a brand-new ‘national’ suit, those with the slimmed-down collars and loss of pocket flaps and turn-ups. Ersatz cloth, too, namely rayon, this one having paid the same on the marché noir as for those high heels or handed in the two old suits required along with the clothing tickets and the 350 francs of the officially controlled Vichy price, if one could but find such a suit. But had this salesman expectations of immediate promotion or those of ownership?
‘Monsieur …’
‘It’s Manager Chartrand. Be so good as to speak to one of my sales people.’
And with the head in the air too? ‘You’ll do. St-Cyr, Sûreté, and before you say anything further, it’s a murder inquiry. Where is Maurice Monnier who owns this shop and has always welcomed me?’
Merde, the day had begun badly with the fog and now could only get worse. ‘Murder, Inspector? What have we to do with that?’
Chartrand even had a carefully groomed Hitler-like moustache. ‘That’s for me to determine and not before you have answered all of my questions truthfully.’
Customers were beginning to take notice, a colonel and his latest horizontale, felt Chartrand. ‘Monsieur Trudelle, please attend to the colonel and his lovely companion. Nothing but the latest fashion, you understand? The boots for winter, the slippers for the fire, the high heels that will give height and do justice to the mademoiselle’s beautifully magnificent coiffure.’
That hairstyle of piled-on waves and curls had already given her added height so as to be closer to that of the colonel. ‘Now, mon ami, come down to earth and answer me.’
The shit! ‘Still in the free zone that is no longer free.’
‘But you’ve not heard from him since before 11 November last?’
When the Wehrmacht had moved south to occupy the free zone, too, the Italians increased their occupied zone of France as well, since the Allies, the Americans among them, had landed en masse in North Africa to take care of Rommel and his Afrika Korps. ‘Inspector, what is it you …’
‘It’s chief inspector, and I’m the one who asks the questions. Drancy was it?’
And a train trip by cattle truck to those camps no one wanted to talk about. ‘I believe so, yes.’
‘So you’ve elevated yourself to manager. Is ownership in the offing?’
Why had he chosen to come here today of all days? ‘My offer has been made to the proper authorities and I’m expecting a positive response today or on Monday. Those shoes you have were made by us but look as if they’ve not been treated as shoes from Monnier should. A very thorough cleaning, the application of replacement dye if we can but find it, and then …’
‘Just tell me when they were made, since there are those here that are still being made in spite of the severe shortages and restrictions and we both know that to get leather like that you have to be buying it on the marché noir.’
‘I’ll have to get the register.’
‘And I’ll wait and empty the shop if you delay me much longer.’
‘Friday, 14 August 1942, a rush order. Me, I remember it clearly because I made the delivery myself, as requested by …’
‘By whom?’
‘Inspector, it’s a delicate matter.’
‘Delicate or not, who ordered them?’
‘Madame Nicole Bordeaux. She’s been a client for years.’
Hermann would have instantly said, Uh-oh, Louis, she’ll know all the Bonzen und Oberbonzen, but … ‘The same as has the fine big house of the rue de la Boétie?’
Nearby and just around the corner from the rue des Saussaies, home of this one’s fellows and the Gestapo. ‘Certainly, but she didn’t wish them to be sent there, Chief Inspector. The shoes they were to match a dress she had chosen for someone she was helping.’
This whole thing was only getting deeper and deeper. ‘So you delivered them where?’
And now for the delicious part. ‘An escort service, Les Amies françaises. Salle Pleyel, Studio 51, but please don’t ask me why Madame Bordeaux would have given some young girl an expensive dress and all the underthings to go with it plus a pair of our finest shoes since those obviously did not fit her precisely.’
Nicole Bordeaux was of les hautes and held parties and gatherings at that house of hers that were the talk of Paris: splendid gatherings to promote artistic and cultural exchanges between Occupier and Occupied. Alice, the Swiss wife of Dr. Karl Epting, head of the Deutsches Institut, was a bosom friend, as was Suzanne Abetz, the French wife of the German ambassador. Anna-Marie Vermeulen could simply not have been that girl. ‘Say nothing of this to anyone, Monsieur Chartrand. Get contrary and you will not only have to deal with me but with my partner, the Detektiv Inspektor Kohler of the Kriminalpolizei, the Kripo for short.’
The Tabac National was to the south of Paris and in the suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux just on the other side of the ‘wall,’ the enceintre that encircled the city if one could find it. Drawing to the side of the road nearest that hive of industry, Kohler longed for a cigarette, for it was here that each of those Gauloises bleues began their little lives. At twenty to the soft packet and a ration of two of those per month plus one of the loose, it was no wonder there was a healthy trade in forged and stolen tobacco cards. Men only, too. Women simply hadn’t been factored into Vichy’s tobacco thoughts even though hundreds among the staff of 3,000 would be working here, especially when so many of their boys were locked up in POW camps in the Reich and not likely to ever get out as far as the Führer was concerned.
Coal smoke did issue from the chimneys but the parking lot of prewar days held only bicycles and a few of the delivery trucks. But when two of those last started out for the Porte de Versailles entrance, he followed. Turning to the right, onto the avenue Ernest Renan,* they drove past the factory and the Parc des Expositions where from 1925 until the defeat there had been trade fairs showcasing industry and technology. Directly to the west, and taken over by the Luftwaffe of course, was the Champ des Manoeuvres,* where the very first French aviator had learned to take off and land in 1905 and the Paris-Madrid air race of 21 May 1911 had been won by the only pilot to finish it, another Frenchman. Huge swastikas announced everything, the gates of the exposition dominating the eastern side of the entrance. Rent-controlled brick tenements, drab in their essence and built in the 1920s and ’30s, clustered closely, for the 15th arrondissement, the Vaugirard, was industrial to its core. Long lines of traffic were impatiently waiting to enter the city for here, too, Ludin and that no-name colonel had still not lifted their high-priority. But tobacco trucks, like vans from the Banque de France of all things, could draw over to the western side and have it a lot easier. Well, some of them.
‘Ach, meine Herren,’ shouted the sergeant-major of this little detail, ‘no one breaks the gottverdammten rules while I’m in charge. Corporals Mannstein, Weiss and Rath, do your duty!’
Flung open, the back door to that Bank of France’s van let a third employee tumble out to face the trouble. ‘Ducklings* among the banknotes and ready for the squeeze at the Tour d’Argent?’ yelled Oberfeldwebel Dillmann. ‘Sugar? Wine you’ve bought at 50 francs to sell at 800 the bottle? Butter … Ach, mein Gott, the charges. Ihre Papiere. Papiere, damn it. Schnell!’
Terrified, the three from the Bank of France collided while trying to find the necessary. Waving the papers, Dillmann who couldn’t understa
nd much more than oui ou non, and less of the latter, took time out. Meanwhile his boys carried the offending loot to a nearby Wehrmacht truck whose tailgate was down and canvas tarp pulled slightly aside.
‘Now, meine Freunden,’ he yelled. ‘Take yourselves over to that batch of Vichy food controllers and those flics with their salad shaker* and wait for me there.
‘Liebe Zeit, Corporal Weiss, that can’t be milk, can it?’
Two of the grey metal containers were lifted out by Dillmann as if but featherweights. Deftly opened, indicating a former proficiency, they were tipped over, letting a flood of what most Parisians hadn’t seen in years pour across the paving stones toward those very food controllers. But as for the two tobacco trucks ahead of himself, felt Kohler, there was merely a glance at each set of papers and a nod that could only mean, ‘Do as agreed and I’ll see you later. Don’t, and you’ll be in hell the next time.’
Big in the chest and lips, which Dillmann constantly seemed to be wetting, the left hand had somehow lost all but its forefinger and thumb, while that ample greenish-grey girth and chest, with its Gott mitt Uns belt buckle, sported the ribbon of the commemorative of the Spanish Revolution. A Wehrmacht volunteer against the Bolsheviks, few would know that Werner had had his reasons for leaving the Reich in a hurry in April 1937 to join the fight in Spain: namely one altercation in a Nazi Bierkeller that had gone terribly wrong. Having been dragooned into making an arrest, this Detektiv Inspektor had figured it at fifty-fifty and given much-needed advice: join up and bugger off or else.
Apart from the neck and facial scars shrapnel had left, there was other evidence of Dillmann’s having been through things, for the right hand had lost its little and fourth fingers. But to the left and higher up on that bulwark chest was the Assault Badge, the Infanterie Sturmabzeichen, and beside it, the Polish medal and the one he had earned in that first winter in Russia, along with the frozen and now missing toes.
‘Werner, mein Lieber …’
‘Liebe Zeit, Hermann, is it really you and not a ghost those bastards in the SS, SD and Gestapo have sent me?’
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