Clandestine

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘And yet … and yet, Louis, he didn’t even think to question why that van of his hadn’t returned on schedule? Instead, he simply told Yvonne Rouget that they’d better give Deniard and Paquette a few more days.’

  ‘You knew, monsieur, that we would discover they’d been illegally hauling things for the marché noir.’

  ‘Precisely 65.25 million francs due in, Louis, and yet he didn’t have a care.’

  ‘From which only 4,780,500 were taken,’ said Bolduc. ‘Why so little?’

  ‘Because they, too, were hauling goods for that same market,’ said St-Cyr, ‘and like yourself, didn’t want it known that they had had any connection whatsoever to the murders.’

  ‘But they had a mouchard that they didn’t know of,’ said Kohler.

  ‘Ein Spitzel,’ said St-Cyr. ‘One who knew of this Annette-Mélanie­ Veroche and was to follow and report on her whereabouts to that Diamantensonderkommando because they had let her go with a little something they should never have let go.’

  The stairs were many and of the rue des Gobelins, and they spiralled upward in that ancient tower, felt Anna-Marie, until at last they came to Frans. Forgotten hides, long-mildewed, hung from wooden rods, crowding in on either side of him. Bound hand and foot, gagged and blindfolded, he sensed her presence.

  Kupka, the thirty-year-old Czech Communist from the Sudetenland, handed the knife to her. ‘Not the gag, mademoiselle, not the wrists either, and not the blindfold. He’s to face us only when all are gathered.’

  The butt of a Webley Mark IV, .455 calibre revolver, a Résistance standby and leftover from the beaches at Dunkirk in 1940, protruded from Kupka’s belt, but to say Frans’s name was still too much. ‘You’ll have to let me take you by the arm. The stairs are steep and you’ll not be able to hold on to the railing.’

  Violently shaking his head, struggling to speak and yanking himself away, he indicated a need to pee, Kupka tapping him on the shoulder and saying, ‘All right, I’ll unbutton you and hold it. Mademoiselle …’

  Turning from them, she couldn’t help but hear the flood and wonder at what was to become of her, but it was as if Frans was grinning at her discomfort, for he wouldn’t have to face them with wet trousers.

  Down and down they went, the air increasingly rank not with urine but the eye-stinging stench of this place until, in the cellars, they came to stand before the others amongst the silent wooden­ hoists and beams the tannery would have used, the heaps of scrapings from the hides as well. A lonely chair had been placed apart, and on either side of it was one of the emptied rectangular­ concrete vats that had been sunk into the floor to hold the sodium­ sulphide and hydrated lime that had been used. Repeatedly steeped in a solution of those for days on end so that the hair could be easily scraped away, the hides would then have been de-limed by washing and soaking in a solution of brine and concentrated sulphuric acid.

  Forgotten, perhaps deliberately so, were rows and rows of ten-litre glass jugs of that acid. Aram, she knew, had on two occasions given them a curious look as if to wonder what they could be used for.

  Emmi, from Neukölln, a working-class and formerly Communist suburb of Berlin, always wore her thick blonde hair braided into the Knoten much-favoured by the Nazis. Tall, big across the bust and shoulders, big, too, in the heart, she could quote Schiller, Goethe, Heine and others, notably too, the Führer, but if ever there was one the Occupier should be concerned about, it was her. Eine Brünnhilde with thighs, knees, heavy grey woollen stockings, black jackboots and tight grey skirt, she invariably wore the uniform and side cap of a Blitzmädchen, one of the Helferinnen, the helpers. Secretaries, wireless and telephone operators and such, she looked as if of the ‘grey mice,’ even to switching rank, topcoat, cap and all the rest when necessary, but preferring the boots since they were more comfortable at times than the regulation black leather shoes. Black or grey gloves too, and no others.

  André Beauchamp, dark-haired, dark-eyed and always looking hungry and younger than his twenty, had been on the run since mid-1941 and not just as now for so many others, from the Service du Travail Obligatoire.

  Félix Vérando took his place among them, as did Aram. Light was offered from a can of motor oil with a wick.

  Seated before them, Frans waited, Aram indicating that she should cut the gag and remove the blindfold. But again there was the thought that she had never done anything like this before and that from now on things would be very different for her.

  Unaccustomed to even such a light, Frans blinked. Swallowing tightly, he asked for water, but was it to be but a ploy for time?

  Aram indicated that she should comply but when the mug was held, Frans pulled away to look up at her not as the condemned—never that with him—but as one who laughingly mocked.

  Unsettled, she very quickly accused him, but of course there was no coin.

  There was only one way to escape this, felt Frans, but first they would have to be told how things had really been. ‘Bien sûr, I’m a résistant and I helped Étienne Labrie, the alias of Stéphane Lacroix, and Arie Beekhuis, that of Hans van Loos, to move hunted individuals such as yourselves through from Amsterdam, the Hague and elsewhere in the Netherlands to France and on to Spain and Portugal or North Africa. Whatever destination suited, since cost was seldom a factor. Our motive was to deny the enemy those they most wanted.’

  This one was clever, felt Bedikian, for he hadn’t denied the accusation as most would. ‘And were you yourself ever held in the Hollandsche Schouwburg as she has claimed?’

  Standartenführer Kleiber and Kriminalrat Ludin would appreciate getting their hands on this bunch. ‘What the Moffen—the Boche—in October 1941 forced the Dutch to rename the Joodsche Schouwburg? Yes, I was, and yes they knew me as Paul Klemper, an actor, and yes I was first taken to Gestapo HQ-Amsterdam in that requisitioned public school on the Euterpestraat, and yes, I did manage to escape from that theater as she’s claimed. Though the date is a little hazy, I think it would have been around the 17 October 1941. A Friday, and yes, a good forty or so of us, not just myself, simply buggered off as soon as the guards got distracted by searching for valuables and forgot that some of us—myself in particular—would have known that theater well and would lead the others out.’

  A hero, felt Emmi. If given the opportunity, he’d take all night to slow them down and make leaving this place more difficult than that theater had soon become. ‘And when recaptured, what, please, did you do, monsieur?’

  He mustn’t smile, felt Frans, though dressed like that she only needed a beer stein. Instead, he must look steadily at her and say, ‘I was never “caught,” Fräulein. I remained on the lam until, having kept the Moffen from Étienne and Arie not once but twice, Étienne then asked me to join them last February.’

  A year and four months of betraying others before that, no doubt, but she’d have to tell them what had happened to him, decided Anna-Marie. ‘This one was, apparently, grazed by a bullet.’

  ‘The scar of which, if the sight of me is not too traumatic for her, I will willingly reveal, if you’ll but let her cut my wrists free. It’s high up and near the shoulder and I was, I admit, rather lucky, since they had dogs as well.’

  ‘Yet when we grabbed you at the Gare de l’Est, you tried to get at this pistol of yours, and when you couldn’t, cried out for help,’ said Félix.

  ‘Wouldn’t you have done? Merde alors, monsieur, how was I to know who you were? Gestapistes français, peut-être, and not just an end to myself and Étienne and Arie, but this one, too, especially since she has been hiding so much from you all.’

  ‘A trainee borderline sorter, Diamant Meyerhof, Amsterdam,’ said Kupka.

  ‘But has she told you what she’s been carrying? Lots and lots of those, otherwise why would the enemy want her so badly Kaltenbrunner in Berlin would clamp such a lid of secrecy over it all?’

  If he could, this Frans
would turn them against Annette-Mélanie­, even to using her real name, but still he would have to be heard, thought Bedikian. ‘Did you and Labrie or Beekhuis know anything of what she was carrying?’

  They could use the diamonds and this one was now thinking about that, so good. ‘Not until we got to Paris. We only knew that she was desperately wanted and that we had to get her out.’

  By her expression alone, felt Emmi, Annette-Mélanie couldn’t hide the dislike of what she was being forced to do, accuse another­ whose life was in the balance. ‘Out and away as fast as possible, monsieur, and how, please, did the three of you manage that? I’m not a Fräulein, by the way. I’m a widow but no longer wear the ring because those who shot my husband, who was a Communist like myself, stole it from me. Now answer, please. We haven’t got all night and you know it.’

  The slut. ‘At my suggestion we played dress-up as NSBers, the Dutch fascists, the Nationaal Socialistische Beweging, and we—that is myself who was playing the captain—told the Wehrmacht at the Amsterdam depot that we were to deliver one of their trucks to the internment camp at Vught. We had forged papers for it, certainly. Good ones too.’

  But had those on guard at that depot been told to let them have it? wondered Kupka. ‘And where, then, if I may ask, did you finally leave that vehicle?’

  So that others could then be held responsible and shot, eh? ‘We had parked our own, a gazogène, with a reliable farmer well inside the Belgian border, but of course we didn’t leave the Wehrmacht’s truck anywhere near him, but next to the farm of a well-known collabo.’

  This one would have answers for everything, decided Bedikian­. ‘So you made the crossing just to the south of Reusel, was it?’

  Again he had better not smile. ‘And that is where she claims to have cut herself as she retrieved that coin I was supposed to have left for the enemy to find. A rijksdaaler, mes amis? A silver­ coin any would gladly pick up, and with no guarantee it would ever be found by those she claims were intended. Now is there anything­ else, Anna-Marie Vermeulen, or would you prefer­ Annette-­Mélanie Veroche, and I do hope and trust you’ll tell them all about the diamonds.’

  ‘After you had killed those two, you climbed into the back of that van and broke open a case of champagne. There were three types, the Taitinger, the Mumm and the Moët et Chandon. Constantly since, I have asked myself why you chose the one you did when you had the others.’

  ‘She had a fiancé, monsieur,’ said Emmi.

  ‘And how the hell was I to have known that? We’re only given very minimal details of any we move, and speed is of the essence, secrecy too, so who had time to spell that out?’

  It would have to be said. ‘I think you had been shown a photo of Henki and myself, taken at our engagement in the dunes at Zandvoort. The bottle of Moët that Henki had somehow managed was upright in the sands behind us.’

  How touching. ‘And is it that I didn’t simply choose quickly so as to salute your happy escape from the rape those two had intended?’

  ‘What is this, he’s saying, Annette-Mélanie?’ asked Aram.

  Frans had known that she wouldn’t have told them anything of what those two had intended. ‘I knew that they’d be up to something because they had recognized me from that previous journey you asked me to make with them, and when I saw them at that Berru lookout, I suggested to Étienne that we use the ruins of l’Abbaye de Vauclair because I knew something of it from my studies. I think, too, but can’t be sure, that their boss, the chairman of that bank, Monsieur Hector Bolduc, may have encouraged them, for he’s been wanting me to join the escort service of his mistress whose office is in the building where I used to live, and I have been constantly refusing because I knew that what he really wanted of me was to please the overseers of that bank of his.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ asked Aram.

  ‘Because I felt I could handle it myself, as I have in the past.’

  ‘Now perhaps she’ll be kind enough to tell you exactly why the Moffen want her so badly.’

  It would have to be admitted. ‘It’s true that I was an apprentice borderline sorter and that I happen to have diamonds I’m taking to someone, and that I was given a few for myself to use if help was needed. But I haven’t any of them with me, and I intend, at all costs, to keep that information entirely to myself.’

  ‘Then perhaps, mes amis, that is the answer you need. Enough to buy the necessary weapons, cars, trucks, travel papers—you name it, and much more—and she knows it, too, otherwise she’d have told you. She’s afraid you’ll make her sell those diamonds or take them from her.’

  ‘Again, I haven’t any with me, having deliberately left them with someone I believe I can trust, and that’s not to say I don’t trust yourselves, but I do have this. It’s the note that was left for me by the chief inspector of the Sûreté who is after this one for the murders he committed.’

  ‘An informant,’ said Louis while looking across the table at Bolduc­ and fingering that rijksdaaler Ludin had let them keep, ‘and this photo, Hermann. The Jardin des Plantes and an associate grounds­keeper who is, unless I’m very mistaken, handing her some dried rosemary, the date taken being 7 April of this year.’

  ‘And a good month and some after those first photos with Sergei Lebeznikov and son at Chez Kornilov,’ said Kohler.

  Picking those up, Louis said, ‘Ah oui, mon vieux, they certainly did know of this happy gathering, she being introduced to whom, please, Monsieur Bolduc or either of you two?’

  That coin could only have been taken out to remind them of what was at stake, felt Reinecke, but it wouldn’t hurt to answer since both would already know. ‘Rheal Lachance and Émile Girandoux of Munimin-Pimetex, with their secretary, Lucie Jourdan.’

  Age twenty-four. ‘Who takes turns showing no favourites and sleeping with both, Louis, the husband being in a Stalag.’

  ‘The most dominant purchasing agency of Reichsmarschall Göring’s Ministry of Armaments and Munitions, messieurs,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Metals, industrial machinery, pumps, generators and all the rest, including food stuffs, platinum, radium, gold, of course, and diamonds most especially. This Annette-Mélanie Veroche looks as if delighted to meet them, doesn’t she, Hermann?’

  ‘We didn’t—couldn’t—have known then that she would come to have anything whatsoever to do with the black diamonds,’ said Bolduc. ‘To us, she was simply a young and very attractive girl who wasn’t willing to cooperate with Jacqueline’s service.’

  ‘Or yourselves, but you did encourage Deniard and Paquette to do what they attempted.’

  ‘Jacqueline often embellishes.’

  ‘But now you do know of that girl’s connection to the “black” diamonds, and my partner and I will, of course, have to inform the others of Herr Kaltenbrunner’s secret commando. We have no choice, Monsieur Bolduc, just as we have none with that little side business of yours.’

  ‘Louis, I’ll get the tape and seals from the Citroën. Take over the Purdey.’

  ‘With pleasure.’

  ‘Inspectors, wait,’ said Bolduc. ‘Surely we can come to a compromise?’

  ‘Not if you’re about to try to buy us off,’ said Hermann. ‘It would spoil our reputation.’

  Merde! ‘Stay quiet and we’ll help you extricate those two who are being held hostage, and will move them out of Paris to wherever you think safest.’

  ‘You do need us,’ offered Reinecke. ‘Kriminalrat Ludin can’t let them go, not now. They’re to be sent to a KZ because Kaltenbrunner­ has demanded it. I’ve seen the telexes. Abwehr-West have been running a check on the Reichssicherheitschef ever since he was nominated last January to replace Reinhard Heydrich.’*

  ‘Didn’t one of your women marry a Jew, Kohler, and have two children?’ asked Heiss. ‘Kaltenbrunner was notified by Kleiber who hasn’t missed a chance to let the Reichssicherheitschef know everything.’
/>   All of which might or might not be true, felt Kohler. Louis would, too.

  ‘Don’t be difficult,’ said Bolduc. ‘Be reasonable.’

  ‘Collaborate?’ asked Louis, pocketing the coin. Putting all of the photos and negatives back into the wastebasket, he added Jacqueline Lemaire’s file on Anna-Marie and the Hague Central’s Geheime Reichssache manila envelope, which also had the photos of Étienne Labrie and Arie Beekhuis. ‘Get the tape and the seals, Hermann, while I keep this bunch in line. Hands on the table, messieurs. That way they won’t wander to pistols that should stay where they are.’

  Everything that was anything was now in that damned wastebasket, felt Bolduc. Oh for sure, underlings in the food control would rejoice at his downfall, but such a charge would never be laid. Others could take the rap if paid enough. Jacqueline would have to be forgiven to silence her, the marriage put back on the stove, but if Kleiber and Ludin were to discover that he and Kurt and Eric had been having photos taken and had known where that girl could be readily found, all would be lost. ‘At least let us have another cognac, Chief Inspector. Kurt, would you? Doubles, I think, and a cigarette, if that’s possible.’

  Grâce à Dieu, thought St-Cyr, Bolduc had seen the need and taken the bait but would he also find, as Heinrich Ludin had done with Oona, that an opportunity when presented often leads to temptation? ‘No trouble, please, gentlemen. Just let Hermann and myself seal that storeroom with the Gestapo and Sûreté’s tape and seals, and we’ll depart until necessary. Don’t leave Paris, though. Be ready to offer up answers when asked.’

  It took but a moment, felt St-Cyr. Once the back was turned, at least two of them did the necessary with their cognac, the other adding the lighted match and for the moment unwittingly saving Anna-Marie and that source of the rosemary, Labrie and Beekhuis also.

  * From the verb se débrouiller, to make do.

  * Now the boulevard Vincent Auriol.

  * A liqueur, a cognac.