Two bicycles, not where they should have been, were locked, the chain linking them having been wrapped around a tree trunk and given a further padlock, bicycle theft being a major concern these days.
Ludin had unfortunately found the needed: a somewhat out-of-the-way dead end leading to one of the Bois’s inevitable road closures that favoured wilderness walking. Leaves were settling on the windshield, and for once the sun was being cooperative, and were it not for the present circumstance, an afternoon in the forest would have been a delight, but there had been absolutely no opportunity of breaking free. The wrists were not just linked by Sûreté bracelets; those of the Gestapo had been used to tie the first to the grip-bar that had been installed above this seat in the autumn of 1940 for use in high-speed chases. A more awkward and increasingly uncomfortable position could not have been found.
Hermann would have said, Rocheleau should see you now, but Hermann would have other things on his mind and had probably downed still more of those damned pills
Side windows open, the Kriminalrat was giving the ‘Toasted’ Lucky Strikes a brief rest and the present circumstance considerable thought.
St-Cyr would have to be persuaded to tell him everything, but how? wondered Ludin. ‘A kilo of boart for what?’
‘Forty-five thousand fivers.’
Himmler would have had to agree. ‘And then?’
‘Is that why the jerry cans of gasoline? Are you on the run, eh?’
‘Don’t taunt. Just tell me.’
The Walther P38 was again in hand, but while a delay might mean a few more hours of life and perhaps a chance to deal with him, to answer correctly would be to put at risk all that Anna-Marie had sought. ‘If I knew, I would tell you, Kriminalrat, but since she didn’t show up at that Lokal, I haven’t a clue.’
‘Would Kohler have met with her?’
‘Since she had never seen him?’
‘Just answer.’
‘Then that is rather doubtful, especially as Hermann had things to do and tends always not to hang around once he’s dropped me off someplace.’
‘Meyerhof did move diamonds for others. Thousands and thousands of carats. Those two from Berlin were certain.’
‘And since they kept whispering such a fiction to others, especially to Kaltenbrunner, a Sonderkommando was needed, otherwise, that one would have had to answer to none other than Heinrich Himmler. Come, come, Kriminalrat, surely the Sicherheitsdienst can do better? A girl shows up quite by chance in Amsterdam, not once, but on a second visit and Josef Meyerhof who is constantly being watched and behind ghetto wire just happens to see her and make contact and entrust her not only with the family’s life diamonds but the route to whoever knows where all those so-called “black” diamonds are hidden? Why not the son, please?’
‘Meyerhof knew it was chancy enough trying to get the boy and his family through France. Once they were safely in Nice and the Italian zone, things could change.’
‘But then that zone was no longer safe and the son and family arrested.’
‘So Meyerhof had to find another way of hiding what he valued most, and with all the other diamonds he had already hidden not just for himself, but for others. By the way, I gather you and Kohler got that girl to free those two I had consigned to the KZ at Mauthausen, not the one at Stutthof.’
Grâce à Dieu! ‘I hadn’t known.’
‘And now you do, so you will tell me where that girl will have to run to once that supposed sale has been concluded?’
If it ever would be. ‘Shoot if you like, but give me a moment since I must argue with my conscience and everything depends on Hermann.’
Somewhat empty, the courtyard off the rue Volney and right behind the bank should have been warning enough, felt Kohler. Having parked the Citroën, he finally realized what he’d forgotten in the rush. It being a Wednesday afternoon, the verdammt bank would be closed and locked up tighter than the Santé. Merde, now what was he to do, let the whole thing collapse, and with Louis out there somewhere as a prisoner?
Pounding on the door did no good, hammering at it with the butt of his Walther P38 little more, but at last a shout was heard, and then, ‘Espèce de salaud, if you and those other couillons think to continue to torment me, you had better think again. Me, I am about to teach you a lesson you will never forget!’
Flung open, forced to face down the twin barrels of another upland, one had to shout, ‘It’s me, Kohler!’
The rolled-up shirt sleeves, muscular biceps, loosened tie, open collar and absent jacket were those of the desperate.
‘I thought it was those parasites again. Where’s St-Cyr?’
‘Busy.’
‘Sacré nom de nom, must you two smash everything? My bank? All that I have worked for? Major clients threatening to pull their accounts unless I give them the advantage of my being under duress? Those curs of the petite bourgeoisie demanding their paltry savings? The press, they are like leeches, I tell you. Never happy, always clinging. Did you and St-Cyr not realize what you had unleashed when you sicked them onto me? Those things I did were as nothing these days. Nothing, I tell you. If that Annette-Mélanie Veroche, or whatever it is she’s now calling herself, had gone along with Deniard and Paquette and offered up her little capital, there would have been no murders, no half-baked attempt to clean out that van—yes, yes, that’s the very one that has just turned in. The little chatte would have been back in Paris, Kohler, safe and sound, I tell you, and enjoying life to its fullest, not hiding diamonds for others and knowing things she may or may not!’
‘And you wouldn’t have been able to collect the insurance.’
‘We can’t. They’re claiming it’s a criminal matter and now, thanks to you and St-Cyr, I’m to be hauled up before Hercule the Smasher. Hercule whom I had counted among my closest associates and most loyal of friends. Bottle after bottle of the Vieille Réserve; cork after cork of nothing but the finest from the Haut-Médoc and Médoc, the hams, the truffles …’
Président du Tribunal Spécial du département de la Seine, Vichy’s top judge and hatchet man in Paris, and an old acquaintance from last February. Louis should have heard him.
‘Hercule presides over the black-market violators, Kohler.’
‘And the night-action courts.’
Those where résistants and other troublemakers were tried and sentenced, Hercule loving nothing better than to condemn them. ‘Photos, Kohler, and not just of myself, my garage, the tenements I own and my vans and bank, but of the wife, too, with the threatened divorce, and my little Didi and Yvonne. Both of the girls are constantly in tears.’
His daughters, the one named after his secretary and primary line of defence but obviously no longer present, since the wife was her sister.
‘Paris-Soir, Le Matin, Le Petit Parisien—even Le Cri du Peuple. All have been running photo after photo and column after column of sensationalism and outright lies.’
That last being the PPF newspaper to which he had donated plenty.
‘And now, you ask? Oh for sure it will be Je Suis Partout this coming Saturday. They’re always berating the police to arrest those guilty of such things and telling them where they can be found. Pariser Zeitung will also be at it, as will Radio Paris, even Radio Berlin. The shame, the humiliation—am I to be stripped naked and paraded through the streets before stretching the neck under the widow maker?’
Sanctimonious as always, Vichy’s Ministry of Provisioning must have needed a scapegoat to calm the masses. ‘Ach, it’ll soon be forgotten. Heros are what’s needed and Louis and me are about to make one of you. Just have than van over to Kleiber in good time—1500 hours is what he wants—and don’t forget to lock him into the back. We don’t want anyone holding you and Lebeznikov up and stealing all of that cash or those Congo cubes.’
‘That one’s a gangster and you know it.’
‘But for wha
t I have in mind, he’s perfect and he’ll keep Mérode and the others at bay. Now I’d better find Louis. This is going to need all of us.’
The rue Vignon wasn’t far but the Wehrmacht’s boys were two by two right up the staircase and along the corridor to that little kiosk at the far end where the cash was taken, the room assigned, and the regulation grey Kondom and postage-stamp towel handed over, jugs of disinfectant being in the rooms.
Évangéline Rocheleau, the flimsy negligée open and revealing all, couldn’t have cared less. Reddened, soon to be giant bruises on her breasts, and a newly swollen left eye and chin, were evidence enough. That husband of hers was far from happy and still favouring a broken tooth and battered lips of his own. Louis hadn’t just made himself an enemy. He had guaranteed it forever.
‘That Kriminalrat will have taken him to the Bois de Vincennes,’ spat Rocheleau, having at last wiggled the tooth free. ‘He’ll have given the salaud exactly what he deserves and me, I’m glad, do you hear? Glad!’
Ten minutes … would it take that long to find Louis and could he really leave her under a thumb like this?
Hauling Rocheleau out into the corridor, he told the boys to do the necessary, since this ‘husband’ of hers had spoiled their fun and ruined her income.
Closing the door, he said, ‘Get dressed. I’ll be back. I guarantee it. Pack what you still have and we’ll find you a job as a seamstress, but if he touches you again, I’ll kill him.’
Louis would have said, Hermann, don’t you dare make such promises, given what you now have to do.
Had he done the unpardonable? wondered St-Cyr. Had he given away innocent lives in but a stark gamble that Hermann would not only pull off that sale and bring Anna-Marie here, but somehow deal with this ulcer of a Gestapo?
Dark blood had now found its way thoroughly into Ludin’s handkerchief, each cigarette butt bearing further evidence. That the spasms were not only more frequent, but all the more intense was clear enough, the lack of that last bottle of bitters a regretted moment of forgetfulness, but not by this prisoner.
Shackled—chained with that Bois-de-Vincennes extra bicycle chain and the bracelets too, and tightly—he was unable to straighten and had to remain squashed up against the passenger door and its window. As if to mock him—and God would do things like this—the late afternoon light over the Barbizon plain was everything that Millet and others of the Barbizon School had found. Sketching out-of-doors had not been common in the mid-1880s. Scandalous, mocked too, they had carried on anyway, but was there nothing he could do? Ludin wouldn’t just kill him, he’d shoot that daughter of Josef Meyerhof and Monsieur Laurence Rousel, the notary who had risked his life to hide her. But would Ludin wait first to see if Hermann did get here with Anna-Marie?
‘That ulcer of yours has eaten its way through the lining of your stomach, Kriminalrat. You’re not just in urgent but desperate need of medical attention. Are those spare cans of gasoline to get you to Lausanne? If so, make sure you can still drive a car and that you don’t ignite the fumes!’
‘Sei Still! If this is another of your lies, I’ll shoot now, rather than later.’
‘Since the gun is yours, it’s either one or the other and of no consequence, but you will never make it to the Swiss border on your own. Take my advice and use the train. There’s a rapide every now and then. The station at Avon is only two kilometres from Fontainebleau, and that is not more than twenty from here. Let’s just hope the Résistance don’t leave a little something on the tracks.’
Instantly the fear of being shot was all too clear. ‘Now show me where Kohler is to bring that girl.’
‘There’s really only one long street, this one, the rue Grande, and it cuts right through the centre of the village since there are only about six hundred residents. Plus the Occupier, of course, for it’s a favourite of theirs, as it is of Parisians, myself included in the old days before the defeat. Rommel, Keitel, Stulpnägel and others have all dined at the Hôtel Bas-Bréau and Hôtel les Pléiades, and stayed overnight, for the cuisine is still said to be exceptional even with all of the terrible shortages.’
‘And the name of Meyerhof’s notary?’
‘It won’t be on any nameplate, but I do know where the house is.’
A few small shops, one general grocery, a tabac, a PTT, a scattering of other restaurants and a small museum that celebrated those painters all drew the camera-totting Wehrmacht who were on holiday. Cars were of interest, though, to everyone, the locals tending to avoid the tourists since those constantly behaved as though they owned the place and emptied the shops.
Of a storey and a half, ancient and of stucco, the house stood right up against the pavement as did most others, even to the windows that were closed off by shutters. ‘That wooden gate to the courtyard, Kriminalrat, will but offer a tight a squeeze and be solidly locked in any case. Pounding on it will only attract unwanted attention.’
Unfortunately a lane ran alongside the property. Masses of tall lilacs, climbers and a stone wall gave further privacy, the picket fence and its gate at the back, one of stout limbs, though offering access for a car.
Unlocked, the shackle-chain was removed, the Sûreté bracelets left on.
Wild flowers, exactly like those painted by Théodore Rousseau of that school, not the Henri of that name, grew in profusion, though most had gone to seed. Beyond these lay a vegetable garden which showed every indication of diligent tending. Rabbit hutches held four does and a buck. Under worn canvas, and with no tires, but up on chocks, Ludin having flipped the tarp back, was a Citroën convertible and another life, another time, and proof positive that Laurence Rousel did indeed know how to drive.
‘You’re out of luck,’ said Ludin, only to choke and gasp, and smother a cry.
A chicken coop and run with seven hens, half hid the gardener, a gentle dark-haired, dark-eyed girl of fifteen whose gathered apron held the carefully harvested grass and wildflower seeds she had been about to scatter.
Terrified, she noticed the pistol.
Seeds showered as she stood helplessly, defeat registering in silent tears. Bolting for the house, she went into what must be its kitchen, failing entirely to close its door.
‘On your knees,’ said Bohle. ‘I’ve had enough of you.’
Could he not even cross himself? ‘If I were you, Kriminalrat, I would wait. Your French is nonexistent and you’re going to need it if ever you’re to find those black diamonds. While there may well be German soldiers who would come to your aid, for you to call on any would, I think, be most inadvisable. Hermann will …’
Reeking, the abattoir waited for it all to happen, the gobs and mounds of greasy-yellow fat, the hooves, the constant dripping of those verdammte taps. Kohler knew he had really done it this time. Kleiber had the whole area covered: supposed chimney sweeps on the surrounding roofs at resident chimney pots and pipes that couldn’t possibly have much soot; égoutiers lifting manhole covers they’d obviously never had to lift before; flics who weren’t flics and others who were, and all on streets that were otherwise empty in any case, the locals having had the good sense to stay the hell out of the way.
Anna-Marie would see only snipers on those roofs. She’d know beyond a shadow of doubt that while she might get in through that side door that gave out onto the rue Brancion, she’d never leave by it or any other. Kleiber would ask, and she’d try not to answer, and then, Louis would have said, What will you do? Oh for sure, as usual you think you’ve considered everything, but is it that you’ve been so overconfident and in such a hurry you’ve missed something?
Verdammt, what?
That FTP équipe. Did you honestly think they would leave her alone to just come in here on of all things, a bicycle, and with not only a kilo of boart, but that of borderlines and those Meyerhof life diamonds? Think, mon vieux. You must, before she gets here and it all goes wrong.
There wasn’t ti
me. Bolduc was turning in. Lebeznikov was beside him and probably cradling a Schmeisser. Kleiber would be in the back, shut in by all that armour plate and that lock, and able only to peer out the single armoured gun-portal on each side of the van, and the small, iron-meshed glass window into the cab up front or the one in the very back.
‘Monsieur l’Inspecteur, je suis là.’
In the all but absent light over by that side door, she having closed it, she stood with hands on the handlebars. There was a rucksack on her back, a small suitcase in the trailer, and as she came hesitantly toward him, avoiding the offal and all the rest, he saw that the pistol she held was cocked and knew she was going to kill herself. And why did you not think of that, too? Louis would have asked.
Everything in her expression said it, but Louis wasn’t here to help.
Clearly there were plenty of potential weapons in this kitchen that hadn’t seen a touch of modernization in the past fifty years, and just as clearly Heinrich Ludin knew exactly how dangerous any of them could be. Alone, he sat in a far corner, pistol in hand, cognac and cigarettes nearby, and not for a moment did he take his gaze from the three of them.
Thin, tall and well into his sixties, and wearing the suit, vest and tie he no doubt always would, Laurence Rousel exuded the notary so much, one didn’t need a second glance. Reserved, cautious—wary to the extreme, given the present circumstance—he sat at the near end of the table, spoon, napkin and glass of vin rouge all waiting. Head not bowed, not yet.
Michèle Guillaumet, housekeeper, gardener and cook, had found some inner strength and had obviously told herself to concentrate on the meal ahead. Giving the soup yet another stir and sampling, she removed it from what had to be one of Godin’s original cast-iron ranges. Wood was added to the firebox, the contents of the oven checked, for she was drying the seeds, having sprinkled a little of the precious salt over them first. Ladling the soup into two plates and one of those ghastly china Pétain mugs, she added a sprinkling of chopped chives and said, ‘There, it’s ready. Bon appétit,’ Ludin insisting on a translation, which as prisoner still in handcuffs, was dutifully given.
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