And circles within circles. ‘Yes, that one too.’
‘Those shoes, though brand new and very expensive, didn’t quite fit as they should have.’
‘So you suggested she stuff some newspaper into the toes that fortunately weren’t of the open style?’
There was no need to give the chief inspector the name of the paper or its date. ‘Annette-Mélanie had never had anything so good as that dress, those shoes and the pearls.’
‘What pearls?’
And sudden interest. ‘The necklace she’d been given on loan.’
‘By whom?’
And yet more interest. ‘Mademoiselle Lemaire. There was also a bracelet of diamonds from Cartier. Of course Annette-Mélanie could not possibly accept such a loan. She said she would be terrified of losing them. Madame Bordeaux offered to keep them for her so that they could then be worn only at the Sunday gatherings.’
Diamonds and pearls, and with Jacqueline Lemaire and Hector Bolduc present. Hermann wouldn’t hesitate. He would simply say, If you hadn’t been so preoccupied using the cameras of the mind on your first visit, you’d have thought to ask Figeard about those jobs and all the rest.
The suite was magnificent, felt Évangéline. Never had she seen anything like it, and turning to Herr Kohler as he tipped the porter, thought to throw her arms about him but already he was indicating what he had arranged. Beyond the entrance room with its mirror, vase of flowers, stand for coats and place for walking sticks and umbrellas, there was the salle de séjour with a carpet so thick one wanted only to walk barefoot. Sofas, settees and armchairs seemed at every turn, a desk, too, with writing things. A liquor cabinet on little wheels had such a selection, the glasses for every sort of drink and all of crystal. There was a cocktail shaker and an ice bucket with tongs.
Attentive, Herr Kohler’s generous smile said that he was delighted by her every reaction. In the bedroom, there was a mirrored armoire that would tell no lies and another facing the bed that would tell none of its own, either.
‘There’s also an en suite,’ he said.
Bath, lavabo and bidet had their own room in white tiles and with towels, the bidet something she had seen only in torn catalogue pages used for somewhat the same but outdoors, of course. ‘It even has hot water,’ she heard herself saying.
‘Real soap, too,’ he said, letting her catch the scent. ‘Soap like it used to be. Perfumes too. Samples. Lanvin’s Mon Péché.’
He had chosen My Sin.
‘The parfumeurs are still very much in business,’ he said. ‘Coco Chanel’s shop still sells Chanel No. 5 and all the other things her firm makes, but she’s decided to retreat a little and has holed up in the Hôtel Ritz with her German lover. Remember to try them all and when your visit’s over, tuck a few into your purse. Guests always do. It’s expected. The toilet paper, too, and the soap.’
There was no question Herr Kohler was used to such places and would know exactly what to do with a girl like herself, but first she would have to ‘freshen up.’
‘Check out the rest of the suite,’ he said. ‘Pack away your things. Just give me a few minutes to settle something, then we’ll go down for a drink in the Bristol’s lounge, or have one here.’
Évangéline would keep for the moment. Louis was going to need all the help he could get, himself as well, and there was only one place and way to get it: give Mrs Florence Gould exactly what every arch-socialite desired the most. Gossip none of the others had, something new to talk about, but for later.
Diminutive, with soft brown eyes and long lashes, her uniform grey-blue and complete with white lace-trimmed cap and apron, Mademoiselle Beauchamp was not quite seventeen but probably thirty in experience. ‘Is this the residence of Mrs. Florence Gould, the American who constantly avoids arrest and being interned in the camp for foreign nationals at Vittel’s Parc Thermal?’ he asked. ‘The one who pays her way out of it but should be with every other American woman and girl over eighteen and locked up as in the autumn of 1942 along with all the British females, too, those who hadn’t escaped when the Occupation first started in June 1940 and were summarily arrested then?’
Ah mon Dieu, mon Dieu, they had arrested Madame, felt Yvette, and would now arrest herself and the others, Madame Volnée as well.
‘Hey, go easy, eh? Easy. I only need her help with the murder investigation my partner and I are working on.’
‘A murder? In this hotel?’
‘Not here, elsewhere, but perhaps if I were to come in, I could explain things in confidence.’
He had even looked both ways along the corridor to see if anyone else was listening. Like so many of les Allemands, he was big and tall but also wore the slash of the fencing sword from the left eye to chin. Formidable, Madame would have said of him. Monté comme un étalon aussi. ‘Your name, please? Madame, she will insist.’
‘Oh, sorry. Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central. A detective inspector.’
And a womanizer but also one of Gestapo Boemelburg’s men, that one having been to several of Madame’s Thursday lunches, his people constantly listening in to madame’s telephone calls. Those of others, too, both staff and guests.
‘Mademoiselle Beauchamp, let me have your first name. It’ll be easier.’
This ‘Kripo’ had closed the door behind himself and had even put the lock on. Well, one of them. ‘Yvette.’
‘Good. That’s a lovely name and one I won’t forget. Yvette, we’re after the killer of two bank employees. Apparently he had his mistress with him, for she left her shoes behind in the bank van he then robbed with the others of his gang. All the press need is a photo of something like those shoes, and me, I thought Madame Gould might have a pair and be only too willing to oblige.’
A gang, a killer and a mistress, a moll, une nana de gangster. ‘Is it that you are hoping someone will come forward who saw something?’
Maybe she wasn’t as ‘old’ as he’d thought. ‘Detectives have to try everything.’
Yet he didn’t have the shoes, only the memory of them. ‘And the reward, Monsieur l’Inspecteur, does it include a little something for such assistance?’
Lieber Gott, had the Occupation corrupted her too? ‘Five thousand for the loan of the shoes, ten if I don’t manage to get them back to you.’
He had a thick wad of those notes. ‘Back to my mistress, wasn’t it?’
Louis should have heard her. ‘Fifteen, then.’
Three big ones and she would stuff them down her front since that was what he would be expecting. ‘The shoes, they are this way, Inspector.’
In a suite of rooms upon rooms with floor-to-ceiling damask curtains and paintings, sketches and pieces of sculpture, knickknacks too, Florence Gould had one reserved for the clothes she wore, and in it, a wall of shoes and a pair probably for every day of the year.
‘Perhaps if you were to tell me what was needed, Inspector, I could find them, since one of my jobs is to look after these and I might, I confess, have misplaced a pair under her bed or behind a settee or armoire, she having kicked them off in a hurry with one of her lovers.’
And a treasure. The shoes were perfect. Neither too big, nor too small, equally expensive and of but a slightly lighter shade of blue.
‘Will Madame really have her name splashed in the papers?’
‘Certainly. Invaluable assistance like this is always acknowledged. That encourages others to come forward.’
‘Then if the shoes, they are not returned, madame she will remain pleased and grateful.’
A further 5,000–franc note was found. ‘Just don’t tell her until after the news breaks that we’ve finally apprehended the killer.’
‘And the others also, n’est-ce pas, especially the mistress?’
Jésus merde alors was another 5,000-franc note being demanded? ‘Them, too, but what’s that scent you’re wearing?’
&
nbsp; That such a one should ask such a thing could only mean a tenderness hidden. ‘Guerlain’s Coque d’Or. Madame, she will wear no other. It’s her signature and therefore that of myself and all the others, even Madame Volnée, so as to avoid any conflict.’
And the phial shaped like two truncated eggs standing side by side in gold with black covers and the central stopper in gold and bearing the name at the bottom, the design by Baccarat probably in the late 1930s.
Herr Kohler even held the phial as if what it contained was definitely appreciated.
‘That partner of mine, Yvette, thinks he’s an expert. Take any perfume and all he needs is a whiff to pin it down. Rose absolute, jasmine, clary sage and you name it. Splash a little on a white handkerchief, preferably one with a bit of embroidery. Tulips and daffodils, that sort of thing, and let me see if he’s right.’
She would press the flat of her hand against the left side of his chest and would look up into those faded, lying blue eyes of his. ‘Then that must, I’m afraid, be entirely one of my own.’
And yet another 5,000-franc note.
‘Are those the shoes Eugène found in that bank van?’ asked Évangéline.
‘They are, but I thought you had better have a good look at them just to be sure. Try them on. Maybe they really do fit.’
The room in the Salle Pleyel building was as before, felt St-Cyr, its austerity all the more evident since the risk of doing anything was far too great. By simply taking Concierge Figeard into his confidence, he had already placed not only Giselle and Oona at far greater risk, but Gabrielle too, and all who were close to them, Hermann as well, and Chantal and Muriel. Every linkage Annette-Mélanie Veroche had forged said emphatically that she had to have been, and still was, no doubt, affiliated with an FTP équipe or some other such Résistance group. Help given on first arrival in Paris, false papers and all the rest, in exchange for help demanded. Watch, listen and report all you hear and see, and go back time and again. Ingratiate yourself and find out all you can.
And yet no one in that équipe could really know her true self nor what she had hidden. He would have to say it softly, as if she was with him. ‘Kriminalrat Ludin is under huge pressure, mademoiselle, and will have no other choice than to call in reinforcements. Hermann and myself have no intention of telling him anything, but it’s only a matter of time until Sergei Lebeznikov, on seeing one of those twenty-by-twenty photos of you from the Hague, tumbles to who he and his son have been taking to dinner. You will, unfortunately, have made a laughingstock of him, something both he and Rudy de Mérode will definitely not appreciate.’
If left on the bed in full view, the shoes would immediately cause her to grab that cardboard suitcase and head for the roof, pausing only to recover the nougat tin.
If left in the armoire with the dress, the same. Indeed, no matter what he did here, she would still head for that tin since Concierge Figeard, though trying hard not to indicate such, would inadvertently, through gesture or word, let her know there had been a visitor. But perhaps it was that she would never be allowed to return here even if that passeur did manage to get her into Paris, since that Dutch mouchard would stay far too close to her and would have to.
Frans hadn’t backed off, felt Anna-Marie. As soon as she had come downstairs to supper in the kitchen, he had been waiting for her, surrounded by its everyday warmth and welcoming aromas. Sensing discord, Madame de Belleveau had insisted that Frans was to sit next to herself at the far end of the table to give as much distance as possible, but Frans was far too quick and took Étienne’s place. Not even asking, he uncorked le rouge and filled her glass. ‘Salut!’ he said. No grin, no smile, just: Say anything and see what happens.
The potage parisien, that standby of every French household, whether on the farm or not, reminded her of home so much, she felt like bursting into tears. She couldn’t let Frans betray them but he was watching her far too closely. Was it fear that what was troubling him, though he had the only gun, or was it that he simply saw her as someone in the theatre with whom to compete? Oh for sure, to succeed as he had, talent had been needed, but that alone would not have been enough. The ability to lie convincingly would have been necessary, the twisting of things said or done, the denigrating of others whenever possible. ‘He’s good, that boy,’ Papa had said of him, ‘but I pity the women he encounters.’
Salome, Herod’s daughter, and Herodias, that one’s wife.
When Arie arrived, he set her walking shoes on the floor beside her and with but the flash of an engagingly mischievous grin, said, ‘They might hold up, but you never can tell with shoes. One lace will break when you’ve already tied two knots. Then the other one goes, or a seam will split, or a heel come off just when you’re racing to catch a bus or get to a film.’
He had even polished them and had made replacement laces out of leather thongs he’d worked on to get them to match the rest and not look too out of place even though lots in Paris were having to wear far worse.
‘No more Klompen, eh?’ quipped Frans.
‘Arie, merci bien. They’re perfect.’ He had even cut insoles out of felt. Always he was doing something useful, had sawn and split lots of stove wood for Madame and would probably like nothing better than to work the land she must have leased to another who hadn’t needed the barns and farmyard that were well behind the potager.
They would eat and when it came on, listen to the nine o’clock news from the BBC in London, the wireless secreted in a cupboard behind things, the aerial strung only for those times. The penalty, prison of course, or death.
The soup was perfect. ‘Some chopped chives, perhaps,’ her father would have said. ‘A little of the goudse boerenkaas. Just a slice or two to nibble on and stop us from slurping too much.’ The farmers’ gouda, the edammer kaas as well.
She couldn’t let it happen. She mustn’t.
The chicken was superb, the sautéed potatoes Arie’s favourite as they would have been her father’s. He even cleaned the frying pan with a bit of bread, she herself having failed entirely to have touched her wine. ‘You sure are worrying,’ he said. ‘It’s completely understandable, but we will get you into Paris and I’ll see that one of the bikes in the back has a Paris licence.’
And no tag stating that it, and the others, had been requisitioned by the Occupier in Liege, and then stolen from them. There were a dozen, but also ten-kilo bags of roasted, ground Belgian chicory root for coffee substitute, Ardennes hams, chocolates, pipe and cigarette tobacco, Trappist beer from Chimay, too, and the flat, round cheeses of those monks, eggs in water glass as well and lots of other things. ‘Arie …’
‘Let me have a look at that hand.’
He even ran a forefinger gently over the stitches.
‘Maybe another day, maybe two, but when they’re ready, I’ll gladly tease them out and you won’t feel a thing.’
It was Frans who said, ‘That was touching but maybe he wants a little more.’
‘Leave it,’ said Étienne. ‘It’s almost time for the news.’
There was static, the Boche always trying to block reception, but Arie managed to tune things in and at once, having never heard it before in France, that call-sign of ‘Ici Londres,’ filled her with hope. But in the Aegean, the Germans had taken the island of Kos, the only Allied airbase in that area. In Russia, the Soviet advance had been stalled along what had to be the longest of fronts. And in Italy, while the British had taken Naples and their commandos had landed at Termoli and would soon link up with their Eighth Army, the American Fifth had reached the southern bank of the Volturno River fifteen miles to the north where a major battle was shaping up along what the Germans called their Gustav Line. The Sixteenth Panzer Division had been moved into position.
In the Battle for the Atlantic, after a respite due to losses, the U-boats were again attacking the convoys from America and Canada. In September alone, twenty-nine merchant shi
ps and escort vessels had been sunk with a loss of 156,400 tonnes of badly needed supplies and far too many lives. Worse still, the U-boats were now concentrating on the escort vessels first, but nine of those submarines had been sent to the bottom, ‘And with good riddance,’ Mr. Churchill said. ‘Desperately needed air bases in the Azores will now be available, the Portugese having finally agreed to this.’
In the Far East, the Japanese had established a broad offensive in China, but on Kolombangara, in the Solomon Islands, American forces had found they had fled. Four airfields had been taken. Bougainville, the largest of those islands and last major Japanese stronghold there would now be next and difficult.
But in Corsica, after an armed civilian uprising on 8 September, French partisans, Morrocan Goumiers and American OSS agents had finally driven the Germans out.
‘Spring will come,’ said Arie as he switched off the set. ‘It’s just taking its time.’
Unfortunately the invasion of Europe would be far too late for them unless Frans could be stopped. ‘Bonne nuit,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow will come soon enough.’
‘Then don’t hurry it,’ he quipped, flicking cigarette ash her way. ‘Sleep tight. Don’t let the bugs bite.’
There was no hope. There could be no hope.
* On 29 September 1943, all but about 50 of the remaining 2,000 were taken.
* In April 1942, she rented a large apartment at 129 avenue Malakoff.
7
In bursts of collective emphasis, noise echoed, the Hôtel George V resounding, felt St-Cyr. To the staid seventeenth- and eighteenth-century decor, art deco pieces from the Boeuf sur le Toit’s former location on the rue du Colisée clashed, but no one else seemed to care. At 2120 hours and late for their meeting with Heinrich Ludin, there was still no sign of Hermann. He’d not been in the lobby as agreed. Merde, what was one to do? Walk among the crowded tables and ask or simply withdraw?
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