Shit! ‘Only that we should talk to Louis since he might have found out something.’
‘I thought you said he had met with the Schlampe.’
‘Me? In the spot you were in, you’d have thought anything.’
‘Then when we have her, we’ll use her to get this one.’
In the foyer of the villa where Giselle Le Roy and Oona Van der Lynn were being held, there was a telephone, and as two gestapistes français joined him, this SS Captain Oster finished reading the letter and saw the stamp and signature. Pausing to reconsider something, he finally said, ‘Fräulein Schellenberger, this states that they are to be sent to Stutthof KZ, yet my instructions specifically state their final destination is Mauthausen.’
There was only one way to handle this. ‘By whose order?’
‘Kriminalrat Ludin.’
‘But is an order from the Reichssicherheitshauptamtchef to be countermanded by anyone other than the Führer?’
‘Ach, of course not, but always we must check to see if a mistake has been made. Einen Moment. I will telephone Gestapo Boemelburg. Your papers, please.’
Now what were they to do—shoot him, shoot the other two and the cook-housekeeper, then search for still others?
‘Ihre Papiere, Fräulein.’
‘Entschuldigen Sie, bitte!’
‘Dank.’
But Herr Oster didn’t use the telephone here. Instead, he started for another.
‘Zum Teufel, Haupsturmführer,’ called out Emmi, ‘these two bitches are not the only ones we have to collect tonight. This is Neuilly, isn’t it and still the home of far too many?’
The tall one with the shoulders and the years, having stayed closer to the door and exit, had at last spoken. ‘Then give me the order papers for those as well, Fräulein.’
‘You have no authority to even look at those,’ swore Emmi. ‘Don’t overstep.’
‘Surely Herr Kaltenbrunner’s letter is sufficient,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘or is it your wish that the report I must file should fully detail the reason for such a delay?’
These two … Both wore the uniforms of signals auxiliaries in the Wehrmacht. Neither were SS or from the police unless undercover, and the younger one who had been doing all the talking until the other’s outburst, had forgotten to snap her handbag closed, Madame Décour having indicated this with but the slightest of nods. ‘Herr Boemelburg will be at Maxim’s. It will take but a moment for a waiter to bring him a telephone or lead him to one.’
Silently, as if needing replacements, felt Anna-Marie, that cook-housekeeper had returned to gazing at her slippers, while the two Parisians were simply watchful and Oona Van der Lynn and Giselle Le Roy sat side by side knowing only that Drancy awaited. Packed and ready, their small suitcases were next to the door, and yes, Mademoiselle Le Roy looked as if she had recently fallen or been badly beaten. But what was to happen when the real truck arrived and would it find Arie’s still in the drive?
Unbearable, this waiting was an agony, but when Oster briskly returned, he snapped her papers into her hand, brought his heels together, saluted and said, ‘Fräulein Schellenberger, Alle ist korrekt.’
But was it? Had he even used the phone or had he just had a good look through her papers and noted down the essentials?
He would keep the letter—he had to, felt Anna-Marie, wishing that she had first considered the ramifications of their doing this when the chief inspector had asked it of her.
To the city and the darkness there was, felt St-Cyr, but thin bicycle traffic and an occasional car, while along the adjacent pavements many of those who remained hurried to the métro or to closer destinations, or waited for an autobus au gazogène that likely would never show up because the Occupier had the use of most of them.
On the rue Daru there were several gasoline-powered cars parked ahead alongside Chez Kornilov, while across the street, the artists’ entrance to the Salle Pleyel had lost its wire-caged little blue light, probably to theft, Concierge Figeard being unable to attend to it.
Behind the wheel, Hermann was far too quiet. ‘Easy, mon vieux. Take another puff.’
‘It’s your pipe!’
‘But it might help and that is what I believe Arie Beekhuis thought when he suggested she give me that tobacco.’
‘You made a deal. You told her that if she would attempt to rescue Oona and Giselle, we would arrange for the sale of that kilo of boart and see that an FTP équipe got its 45 million francs but in fivers! Are you crazy, after what I’ve just been through?’
Somehow he was going to have to get Hermann’s mind off what had happened. Four of Kleiber’s men had been torn to pieces by the blast, others badly burned. ‘You know as well as I that the SD and others, especially purchasing agencies such as Munimin-Pimetex use notes like these to purchase quantities of things and pay off others. Had we a quartz lamp, its UV light would, I’m all but certain, show the bluish-grey of the false, whereas the real would be soft-blue. It’s a preferred currency, mon vieux. No one wants Reichsmark or francs if they can be paid in these.’
Though the Americans had, in mid-1941, suspended international trade in dollars, those, too, would be equally useful.
‘And with the British naval blockade, Hermann, the chances of any of them ever reaching the Bank of England for checking are minimal, and what others might suspect, if indeed they ever did, won’t matter since the notes would immediately be used to buy the tangible and SD-Berlin must have plenty of them.’
The crinkle was good, felt Kohler, a sound so distinctive, bankers the world over used it to identify the real.
‘The sheen is also perfect,’ he said, having briefly flashed a light. ‘It also has the deckle edges of handmade paper.’
‘And the ink is clearly Frankfurt black, as the Bank of England would have used, the pigment made from German charcoal, from grapevines that had been boiled in linseed oil.’
This wasn’t good; it was terrible. ‘The SD must be having them made in one of the Konzentrationslager. Few will know of it, certainly not two dumb Schweinebullen like us. If we do what she has asked, we leave ourselves wide open to knowing of something that is so secret, only Kaltenbrunner and a few others know anything of it.* And that can only mean, even though they already have enough on us, Kleiber will be sure to mark us down for the piano wire, and if not him, Heinrich bloody Ludin or Kaltenbrunner himself.’
They did have reason to worry. ‘We still have to try.’
‘She might not have been able to do anything—had you even considered that?’
‘Yes, but how else are we to solve this investigation and negotiate a way out of it not just for ourselves, but for Oona and Giselle, if rescued, and for Gabrielle? A murderer who is murdered but with the help of a victim like that? Diamonds that do exist and others that may or may not, but will have to remain hidden if they do? Surely she deserves our continued help.’
‘You sound like a saint but have forgotten to mention the robbery of that van and that Sergei Lebeznikov took his son and that girl to this very restaurant.’
‘I am merely saying that we have no choice. We need to find and speak to Rheal Lachance and Émile Girandoux before Kleiber or Ludin try to stop us. Besides, it’s late and this place has a reputation.’
Pungent with the collective aromas of food, perfume and tobacco smoke, Chez Kornilov was also loud, and through the din came the sounds of cutlery and plates, the shouts of white-bloused waiters wearing peaked peasant caps, colourful sashes about the waist and trousers tucked into brown leather riding boots. Crossed cavalry swords, Cossack uniforms with bandoliers, beautiful carpets and displays of knives adorned the walls, with brass samovars seemingly everywhere. And on the wall facing all who entered, a large colourful map showed Saint Petersburg and the Bay of Neva and river of the same—Leningrad to the Bolsheviks, and no mention of the endless siege being briefly lifted on 18
January of this year, the population dying at a rate of 20,000 a day.*
Instead, there was a portrait photograph of Czar Nicholas II and family, and the silver-headed eagle of the Romanovs.
‘It’s like a monument to the past, Hermann.’
Picnic after picnic, palace after palace, thought Kohler, and not a reminder anywhere of the brutal murders of that family on 16 July 1918. France had opened her doors to fleeing White Russians, among them the young teenager Louis’s songbird had once been.
An absolutely gorgeous hostess wore a tightly belted dress of dark blue woollen herringbone with silver threads that emphasized her figure. Brushing aside a lock of ash-blonde hair, her amber bracelets catching the lamplight, she gave them a slightly puzzled but knowing look and said, ‘Messieurs, I am Ulyana Alexandrova, but are you here to dine or make an arrest?’
‘Kohler, Kripo Paris-Central, mademoiselle or madame, and none other than my immediate boss, Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Sûreté. Since a meal here must cost more than 2,000 francs, please show us to that crowded table. Ach, ja, that’s the very one with the secretary who looks as though she’s being shared by both of her bosses.’
‘That would be Madame Lucie-Marie Bélanger.’
‘Do those of the Organisation Todt also share her?’
The builders of the Atlantic Wall and lots of other things, but this one needed a suitable answer. ‘Peut-être, but please wait here until I have asked if such as yourselves would be welcome.’
Did their curiosity extend to diamonds? wondered Ulyana. Diamonds, since everyone else was talking of them and these two were the sworn enemies of Serge de Lenz, the alias of Sergei Lebeznikov whose son, Pierre-Alexandre, had adored that student and had even hoped to marry her and been rejected.
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of carats that no one knew of except for those two from Berlin, Herr Ulrich Frenzel and Herr Johannes Uhl who had claimed, Sergei had said, that the student was a Halbjüdin from the Netherlands named, not Annette-Mélanie Veroche as she had claimed, but Anna-Marie Vermeulen, the very girl, however, that Mademoiselle Jacqueline Lemaire, former fiancée of the banker Hector Bolduc, had wanted desperately to join her escort service so that his two friends and fellow partners, the overseers of his bank, could have the use of her.
Un mouchard, a bomb in place de l’Opéra, and now … what now? she wondered.
Sergei would be more than pleased to learn of their presence, as would poor Hector whose vans would so often drop off things necessary to keep a place like this going, but would they ever find that girl and those diamonds, and if they did, would they be willing to share a few?
Arie had tucked the truck out of sight in the former stable next door and now, thought Anna-Marie, they were alone in the safe-house at the end of the courtyard at 3 rue Vercingétorix. But it wouldn’t do to reach out to him in relief, though she desperately needed to. Instead, she must say it plainly.
‘I want you to leave early tomorrow morning right after the curfew has ended. You’re to take the truck, and a bike, and use that same entrance we did with Étienne and Frans.’
She was in earnest, but … ‘Why not come with me while you can?’
‘Because whoever it was Frans gave that coin to will know who I am and be watching for the truck, and we mustn’t leave it here. Also, I still have to do what I have to, but when I ordered those two to climb into the back and Emmi threw their suitcases in, that cook-housekeeper deliberately made sure she had a good look not only at its licence but that it was a faded red Renault 3.5-tonne with canvas tarp, so it’s only a matter of time until they find it. Give whoever it was this, and make sure you tell him I’m still very much in Paris, and he’ll let you go because he’ll understand, I think, that something far bigger must be afoot.’
It was a beautifully cut, clear-white diamond.
‘Then as soon as you can, ditch the truck and use the bike but keep to the back roads. Try for Martine and the farm, then vanish, but know that if I could, I believe I would come to love you as much as I still do my Henki.’
Instantly she held up both hands to stop him.
‘It’s neither the time nor the place and I can’t for a moment forget what I have to do.’
‘And the cash from that bank van?’
Étienne had taken some. ‘Leave it beyond what you need.’
‘Apolline won’t like your walking out of here in that uniform.’
‘I won’t but must come and go for a little. In the morning I’ll make sure she understands why you left without saying good-bye, and that she really has no other choice, but since I still have ten of those, a few will convince her. I won’t tell her of the cash. Let’s let her find it later.’
‘And the things in that tin you trusted me to look after when you weren’t here?’
‘Will just have to take care of themselves, but with me.’
Tray after tray, plate after plate went to that table where Hermann was getting to know everyone: roast pork, grilled beef and mutton on skewers, a terrine of chicken with pork, then something called salmon kulyebyaka, baked cod, too, with horseradish, and finally a glazed pike-perch in aspic under a garnish of sliced cucumber. And the wine … Ah, mon Dieu, the Château Lafite, Château Mouton and Château Latour and wasn’t Hector Bolduc interested in châteaux and vineyards near Pouillac and Bordeaux, and was that who Ulyana Alexandrova was now trying desperately to reach on a telephone that would most certainly be listened in to by the Gestapo’s Listeners?
Accompanying everything, there were potato dumplings, omelettes, buckwheat kasha, beetroot casserole with sour cream, cucumber salad, beet salad, lentil soup and borscht.
Anna-Marie had eaten here not once but twice, so Ulyana would know something of her and would most definitely have found out more.
Taking out the coin, he ran a thumb over where she had scratched her initials thinking it the only way of saving herself from that informant. ‘Two and a half guilders in silver and among the last to be minted,’ he said to himself and as if to her, knowing she would have looked at the hors d’oeuvres just as he was, shocked that there were so many when children were terribly underweight, undersize, and athletic classes had had to be cancelled.
Having loaded two plates to capacity, he started for that table, the girls gorgeous French and Russian Parisiennes, all beautifully dressed and with jewellery they had obviously been given, their petty jealousies and rivalries all too evident.
Guerlain’s Shalimar, named after a Mogul’s garden in Kashmir, was distinctively being worn by the secretary: sandalwood, patchouli, vanilla and musk.
‘And just a touch behind each of her ears, Louis, and on le mont de Vénus. But these are none other than Rheal Lachance and Émile Girandoux, and these are Horst Lammers and Heinz Springer, the number one buyers for the Todt. Carload after carload of French lumber, tonnes and tonnes of her cement, too, and steel reinforcing rods, copper pipes and electrical wiring. Diamonds also, I think.’
Had he popped more of those damned pills?
Alone in his car, Ludin wondered what the hell Kohler and St-Cyr were up to at Chez Kornilov. Was he to find Kleiber first or simply go in and confront the two of them?
Kleiber had blamed him for everything that had gone wrong, and now there were the deaths of those who had tried to defuse the bombs, also the excruciating acid burns of still others, all of which Kleiber was having to report to Kaltenbrunner after he had first answered why they had yet to have arrested that girl and recovered the black diamonds.
Hilda would have advised him to leave for Switzerland while he could, that all dogs piss where others have, and since he had never liked dogs, he should avoid them.
Had they met with that girl? Had she made contact, as Kohler had suggested?
Sleep wouldn’t come—how could it? wondered Anna-Marie. Photos … so many photos, but had there been oth
ers still, others that hadn’t been destroyed, and had Hector Bolduc seen some of herself with Jacques Leporatti at the Jardin des Plantes?
Jacqueline Lemaire would have looked at each of those photos and would know exactly who was in them and where they had been taken because whoever had taken them would have had to find out. But would she remember the faces, would the photographer? Emmi had had to be told in any case. To have not done, wouldn’t have been right, and Aram, though furious with her for such carelessness, would deal with it if he could, but wouldn’t wash his hands of her, not yet. Not with 45 million francs or 225,000 pounds sterling in fivers: 45,000 of those, with 15,000 in each suitcase, the numbers easy, the rest nothing but a disaster waiting to happen.
Ulyana shuddered. It was one thing for St-Cyr and Kohler to have come here unexpectedly, quite another for this sour-looking individual to have followed. As if in constant pain, and endlessly sucking on a cigarette, he pointed to that table and said in Deutsch, ‘How long have those two Scheissdrecken been here?’
To cross him would not be wise. Better to give him an answer but in a way that only she could. ‘Long enough for each to have polished off two heaping plates of the zakuski and a half bottle of vodka. Herr Kohler’s otbivnaya and pelmeni … oh, sorry. His veal schnitzel in sour cream, with a side order of the Siberian meat ravioli, and the chief inspector’s trout with walnut sauce, will not be ready for another ten-and-a half minutes unless I’m a little off.’
The Schlampe! ‘Cancel those. Now use that telephone to call 84 avenue Foch. Tell the duty officer to find Standartenführer Kleiber and have him sent here immediately. It’s urgent. Don’t and I will shut you down and put your ass and everyone else’s here on the Russian front.’
Oh là là, son cul, and he had meant it too. ‘Would you like to order something to eat, mein Herr?’
Pistol in hand, he had already turned away.
The plates had been shoved aside, noted Ludin, the whores to the other end of the table and all now pissing themselves and falling silent at the sight of himself, the others still not having realized they had a visitor.
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