‘There was a handkerchief,’ said Ludin, having shoved the soup aside. ‘A bit of childhood embroidery. This has not been mentioned, Kohler. Why is that, please?’
Rocheleau must have told him everything and some. Dismayed by the request, Louis had begun to fish about in his coat pockets. Laying the empty cartridge casings on the table, he then found the slugs only to go back for more.
‘Ach, I have it, Chief,’ said Kohler. ‘It was drenched and I simply shoved it away. Perfume, but I can’t tell which. Maybe you can.’
And a ‘breather,’ as the Americans used to say in that other war. ‘It’s called Sleeping, Hermann. It’s one of Schiaparelli’s. Very delicate, very feminine, and indicative of its user but not as decisively so as Molinelle’s No. 29 or Muriel’s Mirage.’
‘But will it help to lead us to her if she does manage to get past the controls and into Paris?’
‘Ah, one never knows, does one, mon vieux?’ said Louis, quickly pocketing it. ‘Even the smallest of things can open up an investigation. One tries. One simply never gives up and it is, after all this talk of diamonds, still very much a murder investigation. Gestapo Boemelburg has ordered us to find the killer of those two bank employees, meine Herren, Osias Pharand as well.’
‘My boss and his,’ said Hermann. ‘Herr Uhl, to give us some idea of what is really involved, what’s the current price of the lowest grade of industrial diamond?’
And on the schwarzer Markt where all such things were bought and sold. ‘Boart is at 450 guilders a carat, having gone up from three in the summer of 1940 and just before the Blitzkrieg.’
‘So in round figures a kilo would be worth what?’ asked Hermann.
‘In Reichskassenscheine about 2.25 million,’ said Uhl.
The Occupation marks, and at twenty to one in France, about 45 million francs, or 1 million dollars or 225,000 pounds sterling.
‘She was a borderline sorter, Kohler,’ said Ludin, ‘and will not only know of the value but which stones are roughly equal, either as gems or industrials.’
‘A half-and-half sorting out those that are half-and-half, Louis. Either one or the other.’
‘Ah here, at last, is Standartenführer Gerhard Kleiber,’ said Uhl, jumping to his feet to raise an arm in salute.
‘Who?’ exclaimed Hermann.
‘Exactly,’ said Frensel, having also leaped up to salute.
‘And the one, Louis, from the Warsaw ghetto uprising of April and May. The one who, under Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who thought it would be all over in a day or two and not three weeks, volunteered to flush the last of the recalcitrants from the sewers.’
Kleiber didn’t waste time or words. In rain-spattered cap and open grey topcoat, with Iron Cross First Class at the throat, Close-Combat Clasp in gold on the chest and silver Wound Badge for three or four, he slapped a letter down in front of Hermann and said, ‘Read it to that “partner” of yours.’
Verdammt! felt Kohler. Lebeznikov was watching from the kitchen doors. Kaltenbrunner had signed and dated the letter, and had furiously stamped it with everything the Reichssicherheitshauptamt had including, in red wax, his signet ring. ‘Flown in from Berlin, Louis. It seems we’re now members of this Sonderkommando and are to be made a party to all of its secrets. If anyone, including that one who has just vanished out the back door of the kitchen, should try to horn in on things and stop us, all we have to do is show them this.’
Tree-lined and pleasant in the morning’s growing light, with mist rising off the nearby Seine, the turning leaves of the avenue Foch gave impressionistic touches to those of the Bois de Boulogne. Behind the wheel for a change, St-Cyr told himself they should see it as it once was. After all, it could well be their last time.
Funnelled by the wide and beautiful avenue, the view rose gradually and magnificently to the more distant, wooded hills of the Fort Mont-Valérien, in Suresnes, and those of the suburb of Saint-Cloud. ‘October is surely Paris’s month, Hermann. Haussmann, as you can see, must have had this in mind when he laid out the avenue in 1854. A triumph, isn’t it?’
‘That fort’s the main execution ground and those woods around it hide the hurriedly dumped corpses of far too many, as you well know, so please don’t forget it. This summons has to mean trouble.’
Hermann had had a bad night. ‘Maman was not overly tall, nor was Grand-mère. Their feet never extended beyond the foot of that bed, nor have my own.’
At 0646 the old time, 0846 the new, had come the fist-pounding, at 3 Rue Laurence-Savart in the 20th. It was now 0859 hours, Monday, 4 October.
Number eighty-four didn’t hold the office of Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei/Höherer SS und Polizeiführer of France Karl Oberg, the butcher of Poland. That was at number seventy-two, but number eighty-four was also on the north side and just before the boulevard Lannes and the place Dauphine.* Though there was but a scattering of cars, all of the Occupier, one ancient hackney gave momentary thoughts of the belle époque whose sumptuous mansions these houses had once been, the street internationally famous. Indeed, the Palais Rose was at number fifty.
‘Stop daydreaming!’ said Hermann, longing for a fag.
‘Ach, Inspektor, had you taken the time to notice, you would have seen that the Standartenführer’s temporary office is on the second floor.’
‘That was him at the windows holding a Schmeisser and satchel of ammo while watching for us, was it?’
‘Death in the offing by piano wire, is it, for having kept things from him and Herr Ludin?’
The office was in what had once been the billiards and smoking room. Firmly pressing a nicotine-stained forefinger down on the green baize and on Queen Wilhelmina’s head, a disgruntled Kriminalrat shoved a coin toward them.
‘When and where?’ managed Kohler, picking it up and passing it to Louis.
‘The Porte de Versailles at 0810,’ said Kleiber, watching them closely.
Three of Bolduc’s bank vans also used that entrance, as did a certain Werner Dillmann. ‘But not arrested?’
‘Half the load in payment as usual, I gather,’ said Kleiber.
‘The coin having been slipped to some trustworthy who was told to bring it here?’
‘And now, since I have already had the safehouse where she is surrounded, you will soon see how things are done.’
From the avenue Foch to the Gare de l’Est was not far with the colonel at the wheel of his tourer. Serving northeastern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and beyond, there was constant activity: Wehrmacht trucks and men in plenty with duffel bags and rucksacks, staff cars, too, and gazogènes, buses, horse-drawn wagons, vélos and vélo-taxis and plenty of citizens with suitcases, some even with sacks of potatoes. To the west of the station, St-Cyr knew that along the nearby rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis were shops, cafés and restaurants; to the east, where they were now heading, wholesale garment works, haberdasheries and hosiers, and once off the rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, rag dealers, stamp mills, machine shops and such.
A captain, an SS Haupsturmführer, crashed his heels together and gave the salute. ‘All secured as ordered, Sturmbannführer. Those to be interrogated, waiting.’
The fool, felt Kohler. Under guard and down the street a little were gathered eighty or so from the surrounding flats and ateliers, all of them justifiably enraged and miserable.
The courtyard of 22 rue du Terrage was long and narrow and well chosen, the cheek-by-jowl houses and ateliers on either side of a ground floor and one storey, but a labyrinth. Broken shutters were above the door to a former stable into which that passeur’s truck would have been hastily tucked. Outside a carpenter’s tin-plated atelier and home, salvaged lumber stood waiting. Old windows being refurbished were next to a glazier’s, metal-work outside another. Bricks in front of a mason’s, prevented anyone from easily stealing a chained cement mixer with two flats. Downspouts, elect
rical cables and wires seemed everywhere, even two old dogs that sensed that things were not quite right and had hidden under a broken bench.
‘Totally of the people, Hermann, and not a soul now but ourselves.’
Only at the far end was there any sign of tidiness in flaking paint and bricks that climbed to faded, lace curtains. The courtyard’s cast-iron communal tap constantly dripped. Laundry had been strung but could no longer be watched, and to the scent of leather tanning on the Quai de Valmy, came the not-too-distant pounding of a stamp mill.
‘A “safehouse,” Hermann, the Standartenführer having announced our presence well beforehand.’
All exits sealed. ‘But safe for whom?’
‘In April, our informant told us of this house, in July, of yet another,’ said Kleiber. ‘Both have been dealt with.’
‘There isn’t anyone here, Colonel,’ said Hermann. ‘The instant those trucks and cars of yours careened into the district, word shot out and the ones we want vanished. Ach, this is the tenth, mein Lieber. Belleville and Ménilmontant are nearby, La Villette, the largest of the city’s abattoirs, but a little to the north.’
The steps were worn, the staircase narrow, the smells as would be expected, felt St-Cyr. Even the concierge, old, miserable and demanding to be left alone, knew little beyond that the owner was still in the south, in the former zone libre and that the rent had been paid month by month without question.
‘The tenants they came in their truck and they left. Last April it was, the twenty-fourth I think and staying but till the Sunday, or was it the Monday? The memory, you understand. Bien sûr, they had items to sell—everyone does these days but me, who am I to question a good tenant when so many try to dodge the rent and wear out the legs, the lungs and the patience? Labrie … yes, yes, that was the name. Étienne, I think, but will have it written down, since that is the law in these parts, and I would remind you, monsieur, that a magistrate’s order is required before anyone searches anything, even one such as yourself!’
It was the same at 34 rue de la Goute-d’Or in the 18th, a deep courtyard with many ateliers, the staircases leading down from the flats above and all lettered through the alphabet. ‘Clearly our Schmuggler has used another safe house, Colonel,’ said St-Cyr, ‘but what is not so clear is why your Spitzel chose not to tell you of it.’
‘Maybe he’s had a change of plan,’ said Hermann.
Frans was onto her; Frans was sticking close, felt Anna-Marie. Having let him steal that coin and her false papers, she had deliberately put herself at his mercy so that he would know he could follow at will because that was the way Frans was. Arrogant, domineering, very sure of himself, flip too, of course, and hopefully overconfident. But what she hadn’t anticipated was that he would have needed a ready excuse to leave the others: her papers. ‘Forgotten,’ he’d have said, ‘left behind in the rush to get away.’
Étienne had been firm. No one was to have left the house at 3 rue Vercingétorix until all was clear and he had checked things with the concierge. Arie had taken a bike from the truck and had asked if its saddle was at the right height and she hadn’t waited, had simply hopped on and ridden down the courtyard and out onto the street. Now she pedalled like the damned, but she couldn’t, mustn’t lose Frans.
The rue Froidevaux ran alongside the Cimètiere du Montparnasse whose gates were now open. Flowers for the dead were on offer as usual, the Occupier lined up for a look at the famous. At place Denfert-Rochereau, the traffic was insane. Bicycles were everywhere and of all types, pedestrians too, for without the cars and trucks, people simply cut across the streets whenever they felt like it, bells ringing madly. But on the boulevard Arago, though still busy, the cumulative sound dropped off—fewer shops and smaller line-ups, more single pedestrians, the Café de la Santé always busy: flics, guards, Gestapo, SS and gestapistes français. Made to hold 200, the prison held more than 1,500, but she wouldn’t look back to see if Frans was still there. She had to trust he would, had to appear as if taking her life in her hands by being so desperate as to ride along this street on a bike that didn’t even have a Paris licence, because that was what Frans had to think.
Heading up the rue de la Santé, brought her to the boulevard de Port-Royal and Val de Grâce, the military hospital. Tempted to use it as a means of appearing to escape, the thought to turn up the rue Saint-Jacques came but she would continue on to the avenue Denfert-Rochereau. Severe, walled in by wood, brick and stone, that street gave no chance to look back or escape. Priests, nuns and the wealthy lived behind tall, often solid gates. Only when across the Île de la Cité and just to the east of Les Halles did she finally chance a look. A mountain of empty wine barrels was perched on a wagon whose horse was so thin it looked ready to drop. Hesitant streams of traffic parted as they passed, but merde there was no sign of him. In the window of a nearby pâtisserie, birthday cakes, babas au rhum and petit-fours surrounded a sumptuous wedding cake. All were so realistic few said they would have known the difference had that little sign not been there: TOUTES SONT IMITATIONS. ALLES NUR ATTRAPPEN, all sham. Papier-mâché, paint and endless hours of devotion to remind everyone of what could no longer be purchased.
Frans could just be seen behind a cart that was loaded with firewood twigs at which two tethered goats were nibbling. The couple with the tandem bike were selling the milk. Everyone in the line-up had their own container. Timidly some four- and five-year-olds were attempting to pet the goats, Frans having just fed one the last of his cigarette.
At the Gare de l’Est she again paused but wouldn’t look back. To her left and west, on the original facade, were the statues of Strasbourg; to her right, on the newer wing, those of Verdun. Two wars, this quartier very much of Alsacians and Lorraines.
Heading to the Arrivée, mingling with the crowd who were hurrying to get home or to wherever else they were going in Paris, she walked the bike among the baggage handlers whose two-wheeled carts leaned this way and that awaiting customers.
Frans would know she hadn’t a lock for the bike but what he wouldn’t know is that she had something else.
Grâce à Dieu, those dark, oft-questioning eyes swept over her, she softly saying, ‘Félix, un mouchard, le Buffet de la Gare, un pistolet, le Browning neuf millimètre.’
Leaving the bike, she hurried into the station.
Street by street, courtyard by courtyard, sewer by sewer and underground tunnel or cavern, the avenue Foch’s map of Paris and its suburbs wasn’t just impressive. It was, St-Cyr had to admit, as Hermann would, a terrible shock and damning indictment. Everything noted was, of course, in Deutsch and quite obviously the gestapistes français and others, including the PPF, had been busy supplying the Occupier with the necessary.
‘Well, where then?’ demanded Kleiber, having spread the map over the still warm hood of his tourer.
‘Another courtyard, Colonel,’ said Louis, ‘but I have absolutely no idea which. Any of a few hundred would compare with what we have just visited. Paris is Paris—tell him, Hermann. No matter where he looks, its history has to be navigated. This street, this rue de la Goutte-d’Or is that of the golden droplet. Wine, you understand. White wine but so famous in the 1500s, its name has stuck. Look uphill. Look up this very street. What is it that you see, and please don’t tell me it’s just the basilica. Oh, for sure, humility caused us to build that huge white encrustation in the years after the Franco-Prussian War we lost, but for the history you really need, you must go back further. Gradually those little farms, monasteries and vineyards became what we now see of the Louis-Philippe era from 1830 to 1848. Each house is of five storeys. All don’t just face the street behind closed blinds and curtains but line up to the very pavement. Intermittent courtyards, however, are relics of the once deep gardens that led to the stables behind and to places for the help, and with, perhaps, a few back rooms to rent so as to ease the budget. But then … why then, the times changed, and many of t
he houses became tenements, the flats smaller and smaller, while the courtyards were flanked by one- and two-storey ateliers. Coffin makers, funeral directors, photographers, print shops, ironworkers, et cetera, et cetera, off which all-but-hidden staircases lead to the concierge’s loge and finally to those flats, yet still in districts like this, the citizens cling to their original dialect and village closeness. She could be anywhere, so if you would be so kind, please begin by telling us what you and Kriminalrat Ludin know not only of her but of those others we are supposed to be finding for you in top secret.’
Grâce à Dieu, and good for Louis.
‘Ask a Frenchman, Kohler, and right away he has reasons beyond reasons for even the most simple of things. Heinrich, mein Lieber, having chosen him yourself, you will know far more than myself about this Spitzel of yours, Frans Oenen—Paul Klemper. Start with him while I have a look at those “villagers” who have been rounded up.’
The Buffet de la Gare was simply that: thin soup for herself, thought Frans, because she didn’t have her ration tickets and papers. No salt either, nor even the usual ‘ashtray’ of powdered saccharine for the acorn water that passed as ‘coffee.’
Though she was at his mercy and it felt good, he would still go carefully. Feldgendarme, looking for deserters, were grousing about, as were plain-clothed Gestapo, though after others, flics, too, and gestapistes-français types.
Lots of other French were about, but she had deliberately chosen to sit near a group of German officers. Spooning her soup, blowing gently on it, she was watching him approach her table, but a Hauptmann got up to ask if she would like his slices of the grey national, and with margarine too.
Managing surprise and a grateful smile, she said, ‘Dank, Herr Offizier, that is most kind of you.’
‘Sprechen Sei Deutsch, Fräulein?’ he asked in surprise, pleased by it too.
Clandestine Page 22