Fewer were about, but all noticed her—the tinsmith in his bleus de travail, the mason in his, two old women at the communal tap as well as a young mother who was nursing her baby. Kids, cats, that old collie, all shyly or curiously watched and she said hello to each and gave her name as Annette-Mélanie Veroche, student, they taking note of it and asking, ‘Has Madame agreed to let you stay with Monsieur Arie?’
‘I’m to see her in the morning.’
‘Mornings are never her best.’
‘She’ll be at her supper. Is Napoléon happy?’
And so it went, she trying to memorize the location of all the staircases, the smells, the drains, the downspouts, the iron bars on some of the windows that gave directly onto the pavement. She mustn’t trip in the dark, mustn’t drop the bike, must walk it up the centre and hope no one was waiting for her because she was going to have to leave the diamonds with Arie, was going to have to give him a note and an address he could quickly destroy if needed, something like, If I don’t come back, take this tin box to …
He had been about to reheat an omelette for two and had been watching the courtyard for her, but … ‘I don’t think I could eat. As soon as it’s dark enough, I have to leave. You’re not to try to follow. You’re to stay right here and look after this for me. I haven’t told anyone where I’m now staying, and I won’t no matter what happens.’
The early evening’s traffic was the usual, thought Kohler. Hordes of cyclists constantly dinged their bells, the occasional ribald bangs of a gazogène were heard and to those came the hurrying click-clack of the hinged, wooden-soled shoes everyone hated because small stones, twigs and mud would cause them to jam. But no French pedestrian would ever set foot on the pavement directly adjacent to the Hôtel Lutétia at 43 rue d’Assas without one of the Occupier. It was forbidden.
‘A gigantic sugar cake of art nouveau and art deco, Louis, whose rooms and suites were all cut up into offices in the summer of 1940 for counterespionage agents and all the rest. A former bastion of Left-Bank luxury, with ground floor, five storeys and attics, and since the defeat, the home of Abwehr-West who let so many out of jail and gave them jobs and purchasing agencies to hide behind. And considering what’s now happening to the Abwehr, if that’s not irony, what is?’
Though in a hurry, it would have to be said. ‘Irony? Look across place Alphonse Deville and what do you see?’
‘The military prison of the Cherche-Midi.’*
‘Had the Church not agreed to the sale of the Convent of the Daughters of the Good Shepherd in 1847, Hermann, that would never have been built to remind us all of the shame of Dreyfus having been arrested and the injustice now of far too many others.’
‘Let me deal with the sentries here.’
A last, fleeting glimpse of the setting sun gave the nearby Bon Marché, Paris’s first department store and one of Agnès’s great pleasures, but … ‘Speaking of irony, Inspector, was that not a forest-green Cadillac Sixty Special you just parked my car behind?’
‘Liebe Zeit, the things one misses when in a hurry.’
Both sentries had machine pistols, so security must have been beefed up. ‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central, meine Freunde. Hauptmann Reinecke and Leutnant Heiss. It’s urgent.’
‘And a murder inquiry,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Show them the letter, Hermann.’
But a glance was needed.
‘They’re in the darkroom, in the cellars. Go left at the main foyer and desk, and immediately take the staircase down. Shall I ring them?’
‘It’s to be a surprise,’ said Hermann.
‘The darkroom, Hermann, and not in records?’
‘Not the usual, then. Not a top priority. Incidental, even just a notion about someone, but there will be the negatives and at least one print of each.’
The little red light was on and the door locked. ‘Let me,’ said Louis.
‘Don’t expect me to find liniment to rub on that shoulder.’
‘It won’t be necessary. The solution, if you had taken the trouble, is readily available.’
A bucket of sand represented the tonic for incendiaries should any happen to fall on the hotel and make it to the cellars. Taking it up, Louis rammed the lock, the door flying open to reveal two startled uniforms who immediately dropped what they’d been holding and reached for holstered pistols.
‘Don’t!’ said Kohler. Reinecke was the taller, Heiss the younger, though both were under the age of thirty. ‘Chief Inspector, slap the bracelets on that one, while I do this one. Both have been up to enough mischief for the Führer to want them shot.’
‘No pistols, please, gentlemen,’ said St-Cyr. ‘No handcuffs either, but where does Hector Bolduc want you to deliver these?’
Prints and negatives of that girl were scattered about, thought Kurt Reinecke, but this Sûreté and Kripo, though hated by the SD, SS and Gestapo, were on the best of terms with the Kommandant von Gross-Paris, who not only despised those others but revered the Abwehr.
‘Well?’ demanded St-Cyr.
‘This is a top-secret Abwehr investigation. If I were you, I’d back off and leave Leutnant Heiss and myself to deal with it.’
‘Top secret, Hermann.’
‘And a nice try, Chief, so they can join us if they like. Now where are these to be delivered, Hauptmann?’
The time to take care of these two would have to come later. ‘That garage of his.’
‘Good!’ said St-Cyr. ‘Let’s fill that wastebasket with every negative and print of her, and when we get there, why we can have a look at them to see how valuable they’ll be to our murder investigation and no other.’
‘You to take the negatives and the prints, Chief, me to drive the Cadillac and take these Abwehr so that I can answer any questions they might have of what’s to happen to them if they don’t cooperate.’
‘But will follow, Hermann. Otherwise you might never find it, and I’d have to find you and then that girl after everything else with these two and Bolduc has been settled.’
Always in the rue des Gobelins during the blackout, thought Anna-Marie, there would be the sudden and not so sudden sounds of nearby industry; always, too, one of the hirondelles—the swallows—a cape-wearing flic on a bicycle who would do his best to see that not a glimmer of light was showing, this one a sadist at it.
On and on he came, the squeaking of ungreased axle and sprocket lamenting his passage and irritating him but giving warning, as did the blinkered, blue-washed headlamp he would often switch off so that, leaving the bike, the hunt for her could begin.
Alone and dwindling, that red taillight at last found the rue Léon Durand to vanish southward toward the Gobelins itself. But now the gate at number seventeen wouldn’t open. Now, when she felt for it, the padlock was on and facing inward. Frans wasn’t here. Frans had been moved. Something must have happened. Had the Moffen done a razzia? Had that been why that flic hadn’t bothered to search for her? Had they all been arrested, Frans as well?
Letting go of the padlock, it struck the iron bars.
‘Mademoiselle, you endanger Félix with a matter you should have taken care of yourself. Now you expect us to do your housekeeping when you have jeopardized the lives of all of us. Were you followed? Did you even consider going back out to the boulevard Arago to have a final look and listen?’
‘Aram …’
‘Have you understood what I have just said?’
‘I was desperate. I … I didn’t even know if Félix would be at the Gare de l’Est.’
‘But took a chance.’
‘Yes.’
‘And were you once an apprentice borderline sorter for the Diamant Meyerhof in Amsterdam?’
Frans must have told them. ‘Yes.’
‘And do you know where these so-called black diamonds are hidden?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘But you do have some to deliver?’
‘Simply to an address I must keep to myself. They’re not the black diamonds, not really. Those are something else entirely, and I really know nothing of them.’
‘Chosen, were you?’
‘When one is very desperate, one seeks help that can be trusted absolutely.’
Hence Félix. ‘But that is not the answer I want.’
‘Then by a very dear man who, for all I know, may no longer be alive.’
‘And is this Meyerhof to cause us all to lose our lives as well?’
Though she didn’t know him well, Aram had on two occasions left her with the impression that he tended to go around things to come at them indirectly, thus throwing a person off, so as to find out as much as he could. ‘I was given some to use if necessary but was told to sell them a little at a time so as not to attract undue attention.’
‘Yet already you have attracted far too much.’
Only then did he pause to quicky light a cigarette, hiding the flame in cupped hands but giving the briefest glimpse of that high and narrow brow, the jet-black hair, darkest of eyes and close-cropped beard. Having lived through not one but two horrible genocides, those of 1906 and 1915–1918, Aram Bedikian did everything he could to stop another. Nothing, though, could have disguised the accent.
Unlocking the gate, he let her in, then put the lock back on.
‘Some couldn’t make it, but there are enough for you to face a quorum.’
‘And Frans?’
‘Will answer your accusations. We’re not uncivilized. We try to do things correctly.’
The Cadillac was a honey, felt Kohler, but this investigation, where was it all to end? Oona and Giselle held hostage, Louis’s Gabrielle threatened with the same and now these two from Abwehr-West who not only had thought they’d the right to do what they wanted with Anna-Marie but would presently strip her of the diamonds if they could in order to save their own miserable asses.
Reinecke and Heiss had tried to lay it in on in the car: Gleichschalten, ja? Himmler’s bringing everything and everyone into line, the Abwehr vanishing into the Sicherheitsdienst, so of course, they were, they had tried to claim, working secretly for the SD, having jumped ship before it was too late.
Russia deserved them, but as sure as that God of Louis’s had made mice to get caught in traps, he’d have to show them and Bolduc that the partnership didn’t piss about.
Ah nom de Dieu, felt St-Cyr, what the hell had happened en route? Hermann hadn’t hesitated. He had gone straight for the Purdey in the Citroën’s boot as Reinecke and Heiss, looking smug and self-satisfied, had got out of the Cadillac.
Side by side under the dim blue wash of the garage’s light at 2010 hours on this Monday, five of the bank’s vans were in. Beside these, its back door open, was the one from the robbery, and next to it, two gasoline-powered trucks with engines still running.
The dogs were nowhere to be seen or heard. Instead, heavily laden with wine, champagne, hams, cheeses, sacks of potatoes and tins of cooking oil, et cetera, et cetera, two dealers and four helpers had been caught red-handed. Bien sûr, it was definitely a moment of decision.
‘BOFs emptying that storeroom ahead of us, Louis.’
‘And in a hurry, mon vieux, but for now we had better stick to priorities. Messieurs,’ he called out, ‘Sûreté and Kripo at your pleasure. Leave while you can if you wish, since we have bigger fish to fry.’
Bolduc wasn’t in that office away from the office. He was distant from it in a veritable Ali Baba’s cave and clutching two magnificent hams by the bone. Seeing them, he angrily shouted, ‘Inspectors, what the hell is the meaning of this? Another invasion of my privacy without a warrant? I demand an explanation.’
‘Which we will be only too glad to give. Hermann, please ask his overseers to find us a little pâté, some cheese and biscuits to go with those pills you must have taken and what this one has yet to set aside.’
‘You can’t arrest those two,’ said Bolduc. ‘They’re Abwehr-West and are working on a top-secret investigation.’
‘To which you were a party, monsieur—is that how it was, and you not even supposed to know they were even Abwehr?’
‘They’re not budging anyway, Louis, not with this in my hands, but will be trying to figure out how to make life a little more difficult for us.’
‘Good, but grab something to eat. Messieurs, that office immédiatement.’
Tough to the last, Bolduc set the hams aside and said, ‘Kohler, there’s really no need for that upland twelve. I know perfectly well what it can do since it happens to be one of those that I, like everyone else, had to turn in.’
Yet had, in a way, managed to keep. ‘Don’t argue. Just do as you’ve been told. We’re the ones who ask the questions. You and the others are supposed to give the answers.’
Louis had them sit across the table from him, he with the darkroom’s wastebasket on a chair and that Secret-Reich-Business envelope Oona had looked into, directly in front of him with the file from Jacqueline Lemaire’s escort service.
Cigarettes were reluctantly offered, cognac poured, for Hermann, being Hermann, hadn’t hesitated to give each of them and themselves a goodly double.
Setting the two twenty by twenty prints from Hague Central of Anna-Marie facing them as a reminder, St-Cyr said, ‘Geheime Reichssache, meine Lieben. Ein Diamantensonderkommando, yet you have failed entirely to tell us of the photos you had someone take.’
‘We were getting those together to take to Kleiber and Ludin,’ said Reinecke.
‘And even the negatives, but bringing them here?’
‘It was en route.’
‘Then let’s all have a look at them, shall we?’
Digging into the basket, St-Cyr selected a few to hold up for Kohler, but which ones, wondered Bolduc, for that Sûreté then set them face down on the table beside himself. Hated now more than ever by the PPF, who would have immediately formed another hit squad, they were now also the sworn enemies of Rudy de Mérode and Serge de Lenz. Four hundred thousand francs might do it, a million if necessary, but somehow they would have to be silenced and quickly. Most wouldn’t give a damn anyway beyond sighs of relief. Jacqueline could entice them to meet somewhere with the offer of yet more information, and would gladly go down on her knees to beg forgiveness from him and prove it.
One of the photos had been placed between the two from Hague Central.
‘The reading room of the Bibliothéque Nationale, messieurs,’ said St-Cyr. ‘A student diligently at her studies, the manuscript centuries old. That alone should have caused you to pause.’
‘Why?’ demanded Bolduc, tossing off the last of his cognac and wiping his lips with the back of a hand. ‘So what if she’s good at languages? French, Dutch, German, even English. The little chatte has a gift for them.’
‘And the English, monsieur, where, please, did you overhear her speaking it?’
‘Must you try to suck up evidence like a carp?’
‘A noble fish upon which the Cistercians who did not eat meat depended.’
‘Give him the answer,’ said Kohler, helping himself to the rest of the chairman’s cigarettes and lighter.
‘I heard her speaking it to Florence Gould at one of Nicole Bordeaux’s cultural gatherings.’
‘And this photo, monsieur, when would it have been taken in this girl’s room?’ asked St-Cyr.
Sacré nom de nom! ‘I have absolutely no idea. Why should I have?’
‘Hauptmann Reinecke, I gather Jacqueline Lemaire informed you, or the lieutenant, of when it would be appropriate to illegally enter that room.’
St-Cyr would never back off and neither would Kohler. ‘That is correct, but as to when that photo was taken, perhaps the lieutenant might know.’
‘I’m sure he does, especially as Abwehr-West are known
for thoroughness and have fortunately left nothing to question.’
Methodically, as if laying out the tarot cards of their fortunes, Louis began to place photo after photo in front of himself.
‘Early this year,’ said Leutnant Heiss.
‘You’re not quite correct.’ Turning it over, he let them see the date and stamp. ‘The fifth of December last, messieurs, but by then, according to her concierge, she would have been visiting her mother who was extremely ill with pneumonia and in Rethel. When she returned on 10 December, Monsieur Bolduc, either yourself or Deniard or Paquette very generously gave her the half of a bottle of the Château Latour, whose vineyards you could well have an interest in. But surely knowing what you must of Rethel, Hauptmann Reinecke and Leutnant Heiss, either one or the other of you would have looked a little deeper?’
‘We now know she must have gone on to Amsterdam.’
‘Having gained exit past the Paris controls in one of Monsieur Bolduc’s vans, n’est-ce pas?’
‘But not with this latest trip when she went to find out why her fiancé hadn’t come to Paris to join her as agreed,’ said Leutnant Heiss.
Everything in her room had been recorded—that cot, the all-too-evident student poverty, even that champagne cork, but Hermann and himself would still have to go carefully, felt St-Cyr. They couldn’t reveal anything more than what had been gleaned from Mademoiselle Lemaire’s file and Concierge Figeard or the murder site. They mustn’t betray what they really knew.
There was even a shot of a pair of laundered and carefully mended step-ins and a brassiere, both laid out on that cot.
‘Jacqueline likes to tease,’ said Bolduc, giving them a slum-landlord’s grin.
‘And René Deniard and Raymond Paquette, monsieur, did they, too, like to tease?’
‘Look …’ began Bolduc.
‘Just answer,’ said Hermann.
‘Even I can see the date.’
‘Precisely,’ said Louis. ‘The first of October and after the robbery and murders, not before them. A diagram of none other than the ruins of l’Abbaye de Vauclair, Hermann, the photo taken of a sketch map in her dissertation, I gather. There’s even a notation—l’eau potable.’
Clandestine Page 29