Adieu.
Pétain
‘A glacier, Louis.’
‘Oui. But what did she do? This letter has been stained by a flood of tears and then tightly crumpled into a ball, only to be later flattened out.’
‘Did she use the rope, take poison, drown herself, find a gun, or simply go on living?’ asked Kohler.
‘Only to keep the memory of him close and bide her time?’
‘Or are we looking for the husband and is he the one who ducks into and out of rooms to leave things for us to find?’
There were always questions, seldom easy answers. Because of a bend in the road and its rise and narrowness, they hadn’t been able to see the entrance to the bridge but now could. Instead of two men on the Boutiron Control, there were four. Instead of acne-faced teenagers in oversized greatcoats with Mauser rifles, this detail wore winter whites with hoods up and cradled Schmeissers in white-mittened hands to keep the grease on their weapons from congealing.
‘A Sonderkommando?’ asked Louis, sickened by the sight and quickly stuffing away the letters and the knife.
A special command. ‘Waffen-SS,’ breathed Kohler softly. ‘Straight in from Russia via the glorious army of the South that’s now based in Lyons. An airdrop likely. Unless I’m mistaken, mon vieux, Bousquet, thinking the worst and that les gars really were the targets, must have run to Herr Gessler and the nameless one, and they called in the fist.’
There would be motorcycle patrols and arrests – all manner of such things. ‘And if we so much as question someone or take too great an interest in them,’ said St-Cyr sadly, ‘so will they.’
Unsettled by the thought, they waited, and when the car was finally noticed in the line-up, a mittened fist soon pounded on the side window.
Hermann rolled it down. ‘Trouble, Sergeant?’ he asked pleasantly enough in Deutsch.
Shrapnel had once torn the right side of the Scharführer’s face from well above the half-closed, lead-grey eye to the raw-boned chin. The last three fingers of the right hand were missing, the left shoulder permanently hunched forward.
‘Papiere, mein Herr.’
‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central. We’re in a bit of a rush, Scharführer.’
‘That does not matter.’
‘Don’t you need the password?’
‘If you wish.’
Herr Kohler gave out with the Quatsch. Harvests ripe and all, the song perfect, thought Gerd Schepp. But this Kripo was known to point the finger of truth at his own kind and wore the scars of it. Disloyal, not a true believer, and one to be treated as if Scheisse were on the boots.
That thumb and forefinger were impatiently snapped. Finding the papers wasn’t easy. ‘Your right coat pocket, Herr Detektiv Inspektor,’ offered Louis submissively.
‘Ah! Danke.’
A packet of long-forgotten cigarettes – emergency rations – was now more than slightly crushed, Louis having tucked it in there and four left, only four.
Offered up, straightened and lit – one each and the French half of the partnership totally left out – the papers were found and handed over to be closely scrutinized.
‘You’re a long way from home,’ tried Hermann. ‘Ferleiten … the Hohe Tauern, near the Italian border?’
He’d deliberately got the location wrong so as to encourage conversation, thought St-Cyr, only to hear the Scharführer grunt, ‘Mathausen. I used to work in the granite quarry but now they have plenty of cheap labour though they could, perhaps, still use someone with a knowledge of explosives if you’re interested.’
A concentration camp!
‘The north bank of the Danube near Enns? Mein Gott, Louis, how could I have missed it? One tries so hard but I’ve been away too long, I guess. Here, sorry I forgot to light a cigarette for you. Have mine.’
‘Destination?’ demanded Schepp.
‘A cabin downriver. A crime scene,’ said Kohler blandly and never mind about their heading for the racetrack!
‘Recent?’
‘Not so recent.’
‘Then there’s no rush, is there?’
‘Not really.’
‘Length of stay?’
Verdammt, were they going to be watched that closely? ‘An hour or two, Scharführer. More if we find something we need to follow up.’
‘Curfew has been rolled back to twenty-one hundred hours. Make sure you’re tucked in by then.’
The buzzing drone of a low-flying Storch interrupted them. Camouflaged, sand-coloured from the desert war in North Africa and looking like a skinny dragonfly with stiff legs, the plane roared overheard at 200 metres, then quickly throttled back to drop to river level.
‘The tiny aerodrome below the village of Charmeil,’ explained St-Cyr humbly. ‘It’s only five kilometres from here, Inspektor. The Maréchal Pétain has a large farmhouse in the village; Herr Abetz a chateau, I believe.’
Hermann paid no apparent attention, would continue to try to break through that armour.
‘Were you at Stalingrad with von Paulus and the 6th, Scharführer? I ask only because my boys were there and still are.’
‘And not on the long march into Siberia? They’re among the lucky then, aren’t they, Herr Hauptmann der Geheime Stattspolizist?’
Fish only when there are fish to be caught and then you won’t be humiliated, thought St-Cyr ruefully. The whole of the 6th Army, what had been left of it, had been taken. Over 90,000 men were on that march, but the Scharführer was letting Hermann know his sons were heroes, their father something far less. Paris had informed Herr Gessler of who Hermann was, and Gessler had spread the word.
‘Lucky, yes,’ muttered Hermann tightly. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘The same war.’
‘Banditen in the hills? That was a spotter plane, wasn’t it?’
‘Terroristen, ja. Communists. FTPs. We’ll soon clean them out. Who’s he?’
‘Him? The Frenchman they gave me to run errands. St-Cyr, Sûreté.’
‘The Oberdetektiv Jean-Louis St-Cyr of 3 Laurence-Savart in Belleville, Paris? The one who gets his name splashed all over the papers?’
‘Yes. Yes, that’s him.’
‘Then just remember the two of you are on your own. We have enough to do as it is and won’t be lifting a finger to help should you get into difficulties. Oh, I’ve forgotten my hand. This finger.’ The roof was banged. ‘Pass. Erich, let this one pass,’ called out the Scharführer. ‘They have to pee.’
‘Sorry, Louis,’ muttered Kohler. ‘You know I didn’t mean that bit about running errands.’
The Sonderkommando would net the innocent, the terrified who would bolt simply because they wouldn’t know what the hell was going on, and perhaps even a few maquisards would be caught. But was the threat really from the Résistance as Bousquet and the others thought? And had the Führer not also used the opportunity to make absolutely certain Pétain didn’t go over to the Allies?
The aerodrome would still have French aircraft sufficient for a night flight to Morocco or Algiers, and Hermann … Hermann had been told by the nameless one that the Reich didn’t want anything happening to the Maréchal or else.
They had reached the stables.
‘Hermann, will you be okay in there?’
Louis was remembering the SS and the scar of a rawhide whip that his partner had earned in the stables of a chateau on the Loire near Vouvray early last December, the château of Gabrielle Arcuri’s mother-in-law. ‘Me? Fine. No problem.’
Perhaps. ‘There are two cars parked outside, and one engine is colder than the other.’
‘Ferbrave’s come running, I think.’
‘And Albert?’
‘Has found more rats than he bargained for.’
Built at the turn of the century, their heavily timbered cupolas rising above the loft, the stables’ stalls were arranged off an aisle that was more than 300 metres in length and held the accumulated tack of all those years. There were thoroughbreds, quarter horses, trotters, hunters and th
ose for just plain pleasure. Lucie Trudel’s dappled grey was a splendid gelding; the stall was immaculate, even with a snapshot of her pinned up for the horse to look at if lonely.
Stablehands, and the usual hangers-on every track seemed to have, were about, riders still coming in. Two of the Blitzmädchen, the grey mice who had come from the Reich to work as telegraphers and typists, et cetera, were rubbing down a bay mare and whispering sweet nothings to it. A Wehrmacht général and his orderly were dismounting to hand over the reins. Everything seemed quite normal. A busy place. Bicycles had been parked outside and at least two staff cars were at the far end.
‘No trouble, then,’ breathed Kohler.
‘But trouble all the same,’ sighed Louis.
To the north-east, there was the racetrack and, just to the west of this and in line with the stables, the grandstand with the Jockey Club’s reception rooms, restaurant and bar on the ground floor and first storey.
The showjumping course and paddocks were closer to the stables. The whole area must be lovely even in winter, thought Kohler. Fantastic if one had the money and time. And good to see that the Wehrmacht felt at least some horses should remain in France. A necessity.
‘Please don’t forget the sports club and golf course that are behind us, Inspector,’ said Louis tritely. ‘The tennis club and its swimming pool also.’
‘And the clay-pigeon shoot which is a little to the west so that the noise won’t disturb things here, eh? Merde, where the hell are Deschambeault and Ferbrave and our two innocents?’
If one of them was indeed innocent!
Not here, one of the hangers-on seemed to say, nodding curtly towards the way they’d come.
Blue-blinkered lanterns were being lit, but above them were strings of paper ones, from the Mikado perhaps, which once would have illuminated the dances that the owners must have held at the Jockey Club after successful races. Champagne and les élégantes de tout Paris wandering up into the loft to soft lights and beds of hay. Cigars, too!
‘A bloody firetrap, Louis!’ snorted Kohler, the pungency of manure, hay, horse piss and oats mingling with that of occasional and not-so-occasional tobacco. ‘Stay down here. I’ll take a look above.’
Again St-Cyr asked if his partner was all right; again Kohler had to reassure him.
Torch in hand, Hermann began to climb one of the ladders. In many ways it was similar to the stable at Vouvray. He hesitated – that bad knee of his, cursed St-Cyr silently. He went on, was soon out of sight. Perhaps they’d come a third of the way along the main aisle, perhaps a little more, but … Ah mon Dieu, what was going on? Everything had suddenly stopped. Even the Blitzmädchen hesitated …
Shrill on the damp, cold air came a high-pitched, ‘no, monsieur! please, no!’
From the far end of the aisle a stallion neighed in fright and began to kick its stall. Inès Charpentier shrieked again and again, which only frightened the horse more. It kicked and kicked and neighed, the girl trying desperately to dodge its hooves. Others became restless. Others began to join in …
Hermann moved past him in a blur. He ran, he reached the stall ahead of the stablehands, snatched a prod from the wall, opened the door and vanished.
Sickened by what they must surely find, for the sculptress had given one last, piercing shriek that had been abruptly cut off, St-Cyr brushed past the others to enter the stall. Hermann had a firm grip on the halter and had tucked the prod under an arm, having used a shoulder to force the stallion against a wall and away from the girl.
‘Easy … Easy,’ he said, his voice soothing. ‘Now calm yourself, my beauty. You pinch them on the neck or cheek, Louis. That distracts them, then offer the carrot if you have one. You’re a handsome devil, aren’t you?’ he went on to the stallion, a magnificent three-year-old but still very high-strung. ‘You’re worth plenty and are certain to take the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp this October, only it won’t be held there due to possible acts of terrorism, they say, so it and the other races will be held at Le Tremblay to the north-east of Paris. Please don’t worry.’
On and on he went, talking to the horse. He asked about the cinder track at Vincennes and how it was, said he was sorry that racing at Deauville had had to be cancelled in 1940. ‘The RAF simply don’t understand, do they? Louis,’ he said in that same carefully modulated voice. ‘Louis, the sculptress.’
Curled into a ball, trembling so hard she couldn’t move, Inès Charpentier cowered in a far corner. No tears, nothing but shock.
‘Take her out now,’ said Hermann. ‘Just do it gently.’
Her wrists were cold, her hands freezing, that lovely coat from the thirties, with its deer-horn buttons, in a mess that she didn’t even notice.
Clinging to him, she quivered as they squeezed past Hermann; she was so thin, could be a killer, but couldn’t, St-Cyr told himself, and finally said, ‘Let the tears come, mademoiselle. Please don’t be ashamed.’
‘I can’t,’ she gasped. ‘I haven’t cried in years.’
‘And you’re terrified of horses, aren’t you,’ he said, ‘yet chose to come here anyway?’
‘I have to sculpt them, don’t I?’ she snapped, pulling away from him to place a steadying hand flat against the boards of the nearby wall.
‘Argue if you wish, mademoiselle, but anyone who claims to be fascinated by horses, as you did to Monsieur Grenier, must have been around them enough to know they can and will sense fear and often react accordingly.’
‘I hit the horse. I was flung right at it!’
‘But didn’t think to try to calm it.’
‘Ferbrave … Henri-Claude Ferbrave of the Garde Mobile saw you coming and wanted to keep you from talking to Albert.’
Closed for the season, the Jockey Club’s bar and restaurant would be pitch dark, Inès told herself. Still terrified by what had happened, still shaking, she knew the building must be huge, knew the beams from St-Cyr’s and Kohler’s distant torches must be flickering over empty tables with chairs leaning inwards. Sometimes she could hear the detectives, most often not, for in their haste to stop Henri-Claude, they’d left her far behind, hadn’t realized, grâce à Dieu, that her eyes were giving her such trouble. They couldn’t know that always now it was like this for her when going from a lighted room into darkness. Everything totally black. No use in blinking the eyelids to clear the eyes, though she often did this and must learn to stop. Always the panic, the terror, that cloying sickness of never knowing if and when someone might grab her or her handbag.
The detectives must be going up a staircase, for Herr Kohler’s voice suddenly echoed. ‘Louis, you leave that salaud to me!’ To me …
‘Never, and you know it!’ shouted St-Cyr.
Their shoulders hit a door, Herr Kohler shouting at the occupants as it burst inwards, ‘Ferbrave?’ The answer, one she knew the detectives could only dread: ‘Outside.’
And in the grandstand.
Feeling her hesitant way forwards – telling herself that she absolutely must somehow continue to keep from them her not being able to see – Inès stumbled blindly into a table, knocked over a chair, then … then started up the staircase. Henri-Claude had cared only to find out how much Albert really knew of the killings and the knife he’d found, and what the groundskeeper’s son had told the detectives of the transport of illegal goods by vans of the Bank of France. There’d been no time to prise such answers from him in the stables. Ferbrave hadn’t cared a damn about what might happen to her. She was expendable. She must hide the darkness from him, too, for he could just as easily have slit her throat and might still do so. He had run after Albert. Monsieur Gaëtan-Baptiste Deschambeault hadn’t cared either and had run after them.
And now? she asked herself, pausing to listen closely and to still the panic the darkness always brought. Now the curved iron of what must be an art nouveau balustrade was cold beneath her hand. Now Ferbrave would either protect himself and the others, and what had been going on for far too long, or fail.
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br /> The others, she thought and wept inwardly. Bousquet, Richard – Minister of Supplies and Rationing – the banker also and, yes most certainly, Honoré de Fleury, Inspector of Finances, to say nothing of their friends and associates.
‘Louis … Louis, where are they?’ asked Kohler, dismayed by what lay before them.
Ice clung to the rows of seats, and in the beams from their torches, falling snow swept along. Away towards the far side of the grandstand, Kohler knew that neither he nor Louis could make out more than this; towards the lower railing and the racetrack, they could see little else.
There wasn’t a sound but that of the wind and the incessant flapping of what were, most probably, swastikas on the flagstaffs that rose from the lower railing to stand well above the roof overhead. Having arrived on 11 November last, the Army of the South must have held a parade here, a show of force, and still the flags remained.
‘I’ll work my way among the boxes,’ muttered St-Cyr. ‘You take the lower rows of seats.’
‘They’re not here. They’re above us,’ sighed Kohler, the beam of his torch having found a flagstaff cleat whose rope now trailed in the wind.
‘There has to be a better way.’
Albert had shinned up the flagstaff; Ferbrave had used the ladder that was at the back of the grandstand, behind the seats. The one had thought he could reach the trapdoor to hold it shut by lying on top of it; the other had beat him to it.
‘It’ll be a skating rink, Louis. That’s why they’re so silent. Give me a moment, will you?’
Lowering a flag, he cut off its rope and let the wind take the rest.
‘Me first,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Tie it around one of my ankles and anchor me to something. You know that knee of yours will only cause trouble.’
Gun and torch were handed over, hat and overcoat too. Up on the roof the little ridges, glazed and with wide and shallow troughs, ran straight downslope, the wind making mischief as it whipped the snow along.
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