Beneath the palm prints and files she’d given them, she had earlier placed two photos, ready for a last glimpse. ‘The one is of myself,’ she said, ‘taken in the autumn of 1900, here in Vichy, when I was thirty-two and had been left with but a few sous and a two-year-old daughter; the other is of that daughter in the summer of 1922, at Royan. Last year I sent her to America, and every week since then she has both telephoned and written me two letters, though now they no longer reach me and she can no longer telephone.’
As of 11 November 1942. ‘And the girl who’s with her?’
The photo had been taken of them standing under the canvas tarpaulin of a rustic porch overlooking the Atlantic. Middy blouses, pleated skirts, bobbed hair, cloches and smiles. A homeward-bound sardinier was in the near distance, the sloop close in to the wind.
‘I think you know that is Noëlle Olivier, Inspector. She begged me to let my Marianne accompany her and the twins, who were then nine years old, and I agreed, though I had my doubts. Noëlle’s objective was not only to get away from Vichy and its vicious gossip, but to settle her mind and search out the meaningful in life. The children loved that holiday and grew even closer to her, and to my Marianne.’
‘And Monsieur Olivier, who disowned them three years later?’
‘Has never for a moment forgotten my daughter nor myself. It was he who arranged to get Marianne and her little family safely out of France. As for the twins and his disowning them, is it not now better for them that he continue to do so?’
A wise woman. Royan was at the mouth of the Gironde, about equidistant between the U-boat pens at La Pallice, near La Rochelle, and those at Bordeaux. Lovely in the summer of 1922, no doubt, but a far cry from what was to come.
The photo of Madame Ribot showed her in a wide-brimmed, tailored-suit hat, round whose crown was wrapped a matching ostrich plume. From under that brim, two dusky eyes gazed steadfastly to one side of the lens, the nose fine and long and a regular ski jump, the face a soft, clear oval whose lips, unpainted and unparted, were perfect.
A white silk neckerchief, pinned with a single stick-pearl, stylishly set off the hat and the plain black, seersucker dress. No earrings were worn – those had probably already been pawned. The auburn hair was pinned up under that hat. An extremely genteel and handsome woman who had just spent her last sou on a portrait to launch her career.
Magnificent, but he couldn’t let it influence him. Louis would only be fussed if he didn’t indicate the telephone. ‘That’s one of his pipelines, isn’t it? Keyed through the switchboard downstairs but elsewhere also – the old Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone building next door, eh? That’s why that little thumb-switch is on the base of the transmitter. When Laval comes for advice, the switch is thrown and the receiver left off the hook if possible; if not, you simply relay to Olivier later on what was said.’
A Gestapo would have dragged her from the room. This one hadn’t. ‘In 1900 I knew I faced an uncertain and difficult future, Inspector. In 1940 it could only be more so, but as for my being a conduit for anyone but my clients, I could not possibly say.’ She would replace the receiver now, Violette told herself, and then raise her glass in salute.
Ah damn the French and not just Louis. Must they constantly force him into choosing? ‘Don’t. Please don’t, madame. Prussic acid’s reaction isn’t pleasant to watch, and we’re on your side. Just keep it handy. Maybe it won’t be needed.’
The hand with the receiver gestured. ‘Then is it, Inspector, that you do not suspect Monsieur Olivier of having killed those girls, but have decided it was Charles-Frédéric Hébert?’
Persistent. Mein Gott, but must she insist? ‘Since you’ve let the one know I’m still here, perhaps you’d ask him where he is.’
‘And give away the treasure of treasures?’
‘Just do it!’
‘I can’t. I hang up and take the acid!’
Kohler moved. The glass shattered as it hit one of the filing cabinets, the receiver was replaced, the line having gone dead.
‘Please, you must not lead them to Monsieur Olivier, Inspector. He has no one but himself, having warned the others to stay away and go to ground.’
The darkness was total, the hotel as silent as a tomb. No one entered because the Garde Mobile had men at the front door and all other doors; no one dared to leave. Merde, what the hell was he to do? demanded Kohler. Let Ferbrave use the ratchet to lower the lift to the next floor?
Of course they thought all three of them had taken the lift and found themselves trapped. Of course they hadn’t yet realized this wasn’t so.
Two of the Garde had been left up here on the third floor in case anybody should attempt to climb out. Though neither of them had moved in some time, their leather coats hadn’t relayed the fact that they’d been touched by him. One man was leaning against the gallery railing, next to an upright and sucking on a dead fag end for comfort; the second stood mid-corridor, feet widely planted in front of the lift, his submachine-gun no doubt trained on its gate. Both would have torches when needed, and orders to get the files on Julienne Deschambeault that were in his overcoat pockets, but would they have been told to shoot if necessary? Two detectives from Paris caught in the crossfire as they hunted down the killer, a terrorist, eh?
What terrorist? They couldn’t know Olivier was of the FTP, couldn’t even suspect this, and neither could Ménétrel, or had they finally realized it?
Traces of smoke began to filter into the lift cage through the pitch darkness. Alarmed, St Cyr waited. Had the Garde set the hotel on fire?
Sickened by the thought, he felt the sculptress urgently place her free hand questioningly on his shoulder. Still there were no voices, still no torch beams.
When he peered down through the criss-crossed mesh of the gate, flames were seen. Little flames.
The lift rose a fraction as the ratchet was engaged, then it settled back and down, only to rise again before settling further.
‘Dieu le père, forgive my sins,’ whispered the sculptress. As he reached out to her in comfort, tears wet his fingers but her lips continued silently to form the words. Had she decided on doing this long ago if captured? Prayers … focus on them and only on them. Don’t scream. Don’t give the Gestapo what they want.
The smoke came from burning paper, he was certain. L’Humanité? wondered St-Cyr. Did they now know who had drawn up that death notice?
Again he looked down through the gate. This time he’d have to press his face against the bars and stand on tiptoe. They’d opened the gate below, so silently.
Flames … the heat was carrying the smoke upwards. Charred bits of tracing paper crumbled, pages caught fire one by one.
‘They’re burning some of Madame Ribot’s files?’ the Inspector whispered, but could not understand why this should be since he had what they wanted.
Again the lift rose a fraction only to descend a notch, and again and again, and where was Herr Kohler, why hadn’t he tried to stop them?
‘Go to the far corner, mademoiselle. Stand with your back to it and your valise and bag clutched in both hands. Leave me to face them from this side.’
‘It was Monsieur Olivier,’ she blurted, her voice a little louder than a breath.
‘He had no reason to kill any of them and every reason to make certain your friend remained alive. Indeed, I think he may well have tried to stop her murder from happening.’
‘Then why the rats?’
‘He didn’t butcher them.’
‘But he has such a knife!’
‘And our killer knew of this, knew of him, his past, his wife, his life as a recluse whom people endlessly found tragic but of interest.’
‘A bitter man who must hate all such girls and the Maréchal most of all.’
‘It’s a cover-up, mademoiselle. The Garde won’t kill you. That would only cause too much trouble with Pétain whom Ménétrel wants kept totally in the dark on this.’
‘And Monsieur Hébert?’ she asked.
‘Holds the papers that are being set alight.’
Scorched bits of paper drifted down into torchlight. There were two of the Garde at the ratchet, and as they looked up the lift well in puzzlement, Kohler moved.
They’d laid their torches and weapons on the cellar floor close by and had jumped down into the lift well, hadn’t seen him yet had been bent over the thing, one with a hammer to seat the pawl properly between each tooth of the wheel, the other cranking down hard on the lever to lower the lift cage.
But now they paused. ‘Jacquot, is it the end of the world and they’re not able to piss anything but ashes? Jésus putain de bordel, what is going on up there? Don’t they know how difficult this is?’ swore the one with the hammer, the argot not of the Auvergne but of Paris, La Villette and the Marché aux Bestiaux, the stockyards. Well, what was left of them.
‘It’s nothing, Marcel. Only a little cremation. Merde, your eyes. Are they really that bad?’
‘Specs? Do you think I need specs at my age?’
‘Easy. Go easy, eh? I wasn’t insulting you.’
‘Then watch what you …’
The guns had been gathered, the torches too. Kohler put a finger to his lips, pointed up the shaft and whispered, ‘One word and it’s your last. Now climb out. You first,’ he indicated the older one with the scar, the squint and the three days of growth, a drinker. ‘Untidy,’ he said, ‘and you in uniform. Look, there’s grease on your jacket.’
Hit and hit hard with the butt of a Bergmann, scar-face’s eyes flew open, blood burst, teeth broke, but the salaud didn’t go down. Sacré, he’d pulled a slaughterhouse knife!
Again the Bergmann was swung, but now the barrel was grabbed, yanked, the feet slipping. Verdammt! Grease on the hand that clutched his overcoat. Grease on his own hand but none on the one that held the knife close in and as delicately as a feather.
Round and round they circled in the shattered light of both torches which had rolled or been kicked to the sides.
‘Marcel, take him. It’s Kohler.’
‘Do you think I don’t know who it is?’
Short, squat, bull-headed, the iron-grey hair cut so close it was a bootbrush, the ‘old’ man with the scar and the ‘weak’ eyes never gave him a chance. Always the lunge, always the feint, a drop down to the left or right, the hobnailed boots giving better purchase than wet, leather-soled Gestapo shoes and a left knee that shrieked pain every time it was moved!
Two fingers of a free hand came up to motion him in, the forefinger missing all but its second joint, the other only its first.
‘Jacquot, is it stuck?’ came a yell from above.
The hand with the knife went in and up, the arm went back and broke.
‘Now you,’ managed Kohler, his foot jammed down hard against the old one’s neck, his right shoulder shrieking, ‘or is it that I’m simply to shoot you?’
The lift hadn’t moved in some time. No longer was there the smell of smoke, the sight of Charles-Frédéric Hébert or anyone else, no longer words that had echoed as they’d been called down to the cellars. Merde, what was he to do? wondered St-Cyr. Hermann would leave their torches in the car! Too impatient, too worried and distracted …
The cables would be old and frayed, but surely there’d be an iron ladder bolted to one side of the shaft in case of just such emergencies. Then what if Ferbrave and the others suddenly decided to lower the lift, what if the electricity was switched on?
It didn’t bear thinking about. These old lifts, so many competing designs … roof hoists, cellar hoists, counterbalances, trips and locks to catch a falling cage if all else should fail. ‘Mademoiselle,’ he whispered, ‘stay exactly where you are even if the lift should tilt a little. I’m going up to the floor above. A short climb, difficult perhaps, but possible, I think.’
‘And hope?’
‘Let’s not argue. Hermann must be in trouble and will expect this of me. The others have, I believe, taken him.’
‘And if they haven’t?’
‘You’ll be certain to hear us.’
There was no difficulty in locating the hatch above and climbing out through it. Once on the roof, the Inspector seized hold of the cables. He had planted his feet firmly, Inès knew. Chunks of broken plaster must have littered the little roof. Some of these could not help but be disturbed and when they fell, she listened hard for them to hit someone in the cellars, but they did not hit anyone.
‘There is no ladder,’ she heard him say under his breath. ‘My gloves,’ he muttered. Had he left them in the lift? she wondered. Crouching down on hands and knees, and setting her case and bag aside, she began to search the floor.
‘Mademoiselle, what are you doing?’ he whispered urgently.
‘The gloves,’ she said. ‘I can give you mine.’
‘It’s not necessary. I was only fussing about ruining them. Replacements are impossible.’
The sculptress moved back to her corner, the cage tilting that way a little, its guide rails worn.
‘Now stay there, please,’ he said. ‘Everything is fine.’
Inès tried to remember lifts she’d taken in Paris. Many had gone up through the wells of spiralling staircases. Between the ages of ten and twelve, Céline and she had been fascinated by them and had often played a game of racing each other, the one taking the lift, the other the stairs, until caught, sent down by the concierge and banished for a time to walk the streets arm in arm and window-shop. Then they’d dare each other to venture in, not only to gush over the most insignificant and appallingly tasteless items, but to ask their price and try to bargain. Then they would decide to leave and, in full view of the shopkeeper, give the money to the first beggar who came along.
Céline …
The little light above her came on. There was a loud, metallic click, a clunk, and the pulleys began to strain, to turn as she blinked.
Terrified, Inès groped for the buttons. Must stop the lift. I must! she cried out to herself and began to press and then hit them with the palm of her right hand. The lift went down and down, only to suddenly stop.
Timidly she put an exploratory hand through the gate to touch the cold wall of the shaft. Again she pressed a button. Now the lift started up, only to stop. Now she pushed the button hard, and again the lift started up, only to descend and quickly come to another abrupt stop.
She hesitated, waited – pushed another of the buttons.
Down and down the lift went until at last its cage door was opened and then closed.
‘Albert …’ she said, her voice not loud or shrill, but flat and toneless as she backed away until she could no longer move.
He did not answer. He drew in a breath as he studied her. Was he puzzled? Had he been pushing the buttons too? Surely he must want to know where St-Cyr had gone?
Another breath was taken, then he gave a little sigh and the smell of him came to her.
Kohler was moving fast. He had to draw the Garde off, had to help Louis out, couldn’t let them have the trumped-up, pseudo-medical file on Julienne Deschambeault either, would have to hide it and the other one some place, but where?
He had propelled the two from the lift-well partway up the main staircase and into the rest of the Garde, had run from these as they’d come thundering down into the cellars. He had gone to ground himself, but every time he entered a corridor, the lights would be thrown on and they would catch a sight of him.
Merde, if only he could find Olivier, if only Madame Ribot could have told him where that one was hiding. The old PTT? he wondered again, as he and Louis had … An ear constantly to the telephone lines not just from this hotel, but from the Hôtel du Parc, the Majestic and all the others. Olivier and that bank of his had financed the building and the move to a bigger, modern exchange, but was there a corridor to it, a tunnel of some kind? Old cables … had those been what he’d seen running along the ceiling of this corridor?
A treasure, Madame Ribot had said. A treasure.
‘The baths,’ he mutter
ed, coming upon an arched, oaken door with mounted placard, as yet another light switch was found and thrown on well behind him.
The door’s lock was flimsy. Jésus, merde alors, would it hold long enough for him to hide the files?
There was a notice on its back: Établissement Thermal – Service Medical … The names of Vichy’s ‘medical’ consultants, Raoul Normand among them …
The towel room? he wondered.
TARIFS DES BAINS, DOUCHES ET AUTRES SERVICES … BAIN DE CÉSAR … Caesar’s bath, 2 francs … GRANDE DOUCHE CHAUDE … the hot shower, 1 franc 50, PETITE DOUCHE LOCALE, 1 franc 25…. BUVETTES … a season’s pass to all of them, the Hall des Sources, the Chomel, the Parc and Célestins, et cetera. Ten francs.
Where … where the hell could he hide the files and not be caught with them?
Gossamer-clad maidens combed their hair or bathed in the buff as coy little half-submerged virgins beckoned to a young lad from among a mural of dark green lily pads. Blue and gold tilework paved the floor. Mustn’t slip, he warned himself. Must keep going in spite of that knee of mine.
From the half-shell of a giant scallop, a life-sized marble statue of a naked girl stood on tiptoes with slender arms upraised and entwined as a bearded, ancient Neptune summoned her by blowing on a conch.
Water fell over marble bas-reliefs of romping, life-sized nymphs. Sumptuous things, gorgeous things, pure and innocent in their nakedness and completely at ease with one another among tall reeds at the bank of a river, the Nile … Was it the Nile?
The sculptor Girardon, Louis would have said, as he had when they’d visited Versailles in the autumn of 1940, Occupier and Occupied getting to know one another. The original had been cast in lead, in 1670 or thereabouts.
‘Kohler, that’s enough!’ cried Henri-Claude Ferbrave. ‘Be reasonable. All we want are the files. We’ve burned the rest.’
The rest … The rest, came the echoes. What rest? he wondered, frantically tossing his head as he looked for a way out and muttered, ‘The handprints they took from Madame Ribot.’ Four, five … no, seven of the bastards were heading for him. Hard, no-nonsense sons of bitches, tough … mein Gott they were tough. Charles-Frédéric Hébert was the last of them and the only one without a weapon.
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