Tapestry

by J. Robert Janes

  An assassin? he had to ask. A girl? A Blitzmädel they would never have suspected?

  The boys had overheard her asking the carousel’s operator if Hermann always kept their guns until needed and if this chief inspector had a girlfriend who was the chanteuse at the Club Mirage. Gabrielle would have to be warned.

  The boys had held a little conference and then had followed this Sonja Remer. She had gone into the toilets at the restaurant. Guy Vachon, having lost at straws, had snatched the handbag. She had shrieked and cried out, had chased them, but they had run to the carousel, had passed the bag from hand to hand, vanishing into the park as delinquent boys will who know their territory.

  ‘And now?’ he had to ask. ‘Now we must solve the matter or face the consequences.’ Arms weren’t regulation issue for Blitzmädel, not unless they had first been assigned a special duty and then trained for it. The Fräulein Remer had spoken French fluently. ‘Her accent was good,’ Hervé Desrochers had said. ‘She wanted to know how well you and Herr Kohler worked together, had heard lots of stories, but wanted to hear it from a Frenchman. The operator of that machine, you know how he is. A mouth like a pipe organ.’

  ‘A storm,’ Antoine had said. ‘We had to find out who she was, Monsieur Louis.’

  ‘It was intelligence work,’ Dédé had added. ‘Information you and Herr Kohler would need.’ There had been a fully loaded spare clip among the boy’s share of the loot, but no time to take the matter further. The handbag had been quickly restuffed and now lay in the Citroën under the front seat with their guns, the car locked, of course, though that in itself was no guarantee against theft and he would absolutely have to find Hermann and quickly.

  ‘There was a chocolate bar,’ Dédé had added, ‘and … and a small tin of bonbons à la menthe from the Abbaye de Flavigny. These, they are missing.’

  And hadn’t there been an explosion of juvenile delinquency? Hadn’t the number of serious cases before the courts tripled since 1939? Didn’t Hercule the Smasher preside over the worst of these cases in the département de la Seine? ‘Hercule Rouget … Ah merde, merde, I should have thought of it when questioning that daughter of his but spent the time with Gaston Morel.’

  When Luc Desrocher’s vélo-taxi, the Red Comb of the Magnificent Cock, rolled in, he was ready. ‘Monsieur Albert Vasseur? Sûreté. A moment, please.’

  ‘Time is too precious. How the hell am I supposed to pay the evening’s rent for this shit box when you people refuse to release my taxi for repairs and claim it is needed evidence?’

  ‘I’ll see what can be done.’

  ‘Have I not heard that before?’

  ‘Calm down.’

  ‘Or you will have me arrested? HEY, OO-OO, MES AMIS, HELP! It wasn’t my fault the taxi was stolen. Georges, tell him. Henri, you too. Martin, you also, and Jacques.’

  They had all climbed out from the shelter of their respective cabs, rain or no rain.

  ‘They will vouch for me, Inspector. One pedals and pedals and cannot piss one’s trousers, can one?’

  There was definite agreement on the matter, tobacco smoke too.

  ‘I came in and hardly made it to the watering trough.’

  ‘You must know how the Germans are for cleanliness, Inspector,’ insisted one. ‘If they catch us pissing into the boulevard des Capucines, they have a fit and give us three years forced labour in the Reich or the same but of idleness in the Santé.’

  ‘The vespasienne is over there in the darkness,’ said another. ‘Albert, he has …’

  ‘Yes, yes. Please let him tell me himself.’

  ‘We’re only trying to help,’ grumbled one.

  ‘No one asks our opinion,’ said another.

  ‘Blackout mugging and rapes are bad for business yet the law refuses to listen. Come on, mes amis, let’s go.’

  ‘Wait! I’ll listen to each of you but first …’

  ‘I stepped into the urinal, Inspector, and up to the trough,’ said Vasseur. ‘I hurried with the buttons, one of which popped off, and there’s no light in those damned things anymore, so it’s gone forever. Who the hell’s going to bomb them anyway, a little pinpoint of light like that and seen from five thousand metres or more? Others came in behind to rub shoulders. Jésus, save us, what was I to have thought on a night like that or this? The weather brings on the flood. The one to my left said it was a bitch; the one to my right sighed with relief.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘The one on the right finished up. The one to the left took longer but stayed to let me finish and didn’t go out the other way as he could have, so I was forced to retreat and went out as I’d come in.’

  ‘With that one right behind you.’

  ‘That is correct. When I got here, the boys were already chasing after my taxi.’

  ‘Height?’

  ‘Both medium.’

  ‘Weight?’

  ‘The first broad-shouldered like a wedge, the second with the gut of a barrel. I had to throw up a hand to stop myself from kissing the metal as he went past me on entering to relieve himself.’

  The urinal’s walls were concentric shells with standing room only between. ‘Those two sandwiched you.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Hermann, if he could, would always share his cigarettes at times like this, but there were none. ‘The accent of the man with the gut?’

  ‘The Butte.’

  Montmartre. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘The smell of sardines. I’m sure of this.’

  Even so, it would have to be said. ‘Those urinals reek.’

  ‘Of course, and I can’t understand why I should have smelled such a meal. Perhaps it was simply because I was hungry. It’s been years since I’ve had any.’

  ‘Inspector, I smelled them too,’ interjected one of the others. ‘The son of a bitch who stole the taxi shoved me out of the way. I slipped as I grabbed him. I struggled to get up and he clobbered me. Hands … He had big hands, this much I do know also.’

  ‘Oui, oui, but sardines … ? Could it have been Norwegian fish-oil margarine?’

  ‘To keep out the rain?’ exclaimed another. ‘He’d have needed more than the tickets give.’

  Considered muttering followed, then passive agreement. ‘Oilskins and old ones, Inspector. Grease on the shoulders, upper arms and hat, but, of course, a supply,’ said the one who had been shoved.

  ‘Ah, bon, now we’re getting somewhere but, M. Vasseur, how did they know you would return here and not go directly to the École Centrale to pick up Madame Guillaumet?’

  ‘Tell him, Albert,’ said one of the others. ‘You’re going to have to.’

  ‘Earlier I’d picked up a fare here. He asked to be taken to the intersection of the rue Réaumur and the boulevard de Sébastopol …’

  ‘And all but to the passage de la Trinité and close enough to the École Centrale.’

  This Sûreté had understood. ‘But when we got there, he changed his mind and asked to be brought back.’

  The timing then; three men also. ‘And that one? Come, come, remember.’

  ‘How am I to do so? They come out of that café full of food and wine and smoking good cigars or cigarettes, and they shout, “Hey, you. Taxi,” as if they owned the world and had the right to order people around. Do you know where my beautiful Peugeot 301 is? A 1933 and cared for like a baby? They took her away in July of 1940, and when they discovered she had a thirst, brought her back minus the tyres and battery!’

  A cigarette was offered in sympathy, a drag being inhaled and then another. ‘I took him where he wanted to go, Inspector. That’s my job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course, but didn’t he ask how much the fare would be?’

  ‘Like most of them here, he couldn’t have cared less, even though he was French, and if you know anything, you will know what I mean by that.’

  ‘Tall or not?’

  ‘Not so tall that he reached the clouds like the one in London.’

  Général Cha
rles de Gaulle. ‘The accent?’

  ‘A bac.’

  The baccalauréat and entrance to higher education.

  ‘A former military man, perhaps. These days the mothballs shouldn’t try to roll around so much in the armoire they get in the road of the mice and disturb them.’

  The Résistance invariably wanted no part of such officers who, now that the war was turning, increasingly wanted to command them.

  ‘Though it was dark, Inspector, I could see that he stood like a soldier,’ said Vasseur.

  ‘Was he wearing his French army greatcoat and cap? You’d have smelled the wool.’

  ‘And the aftershave and tobacco, but he had asked me to hurry, and by the time we reached the intersection, I was worn out.’

  ‘One can’t argue with such, Inspector,’ said one of the others. ‘His boots, Albert. Tell him.’

  ‘Were hobnailed. What else would one have expected?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The red ribbon,’ admitted Vasseur. ‘When one sees it, one obeys, isn’t that so?’

  ‘You shone your light at him?’

  ‘Briefly, but not in the face. The ribbon stopped me from lifting the light further and when he asked me to bring him right back here, I didn’t argue.’

  ‘The times, please, as close as possible?’

  ‘Times?’ arched Vasseur. ‘I don’t have a watch. I had to sell it to one of our “friends” to make ends meet.’

  ‘Then how could you possibly have known how to be on time when picking up Madame Guillaumet at that school?’

  ‘I ask others. I have to. I asked him too. We got back here at seven thirty-eight.’

  Leaving lots of time for the urinal and the first of the others to steal the taxi and get to the École Centrale, but not enough for the one with the red ribbon to reach the police academy unless he had had a car and therefore friends in high places. ‘Where did Madame Guillaumet arrange for you to take her?’

  This Sûreté wasn’t going to like the answer. ‘Fifteen place Vendôme.’

  ‘The Ritz?’

  Was it so surprising, given what many of the wives of prisoners of war were doing, even those of officers? ‘It has no other address, has it?’

  One of several homes away from home for visiting generals and others of high rank from the Reich. ‘Were you to have waited there for her?’

  There would have been plenty of other taxis she could have taken after her little liaison, but this one must know the stepsister of Gaston Morel’s wife had sent the woman to him and that he would have had to wait. ‘ “The half-hour, the three-quarters of an hour,” she said. She didn’t know exactly how long it would take, but felt not too long. She was worried about leaving her children alone at home and said, “I’ve never done anything like this before.” ’

  But had she? Didn’t the wife who was having an illicit love affair often worry about her children? wondered St-Cyr. His wife had, his Marianne.

  Hermann wasn’t going to like what had turned up but where was he?

  The judge was still not happy, the rise in blackout crime due entirely to the ineptitude of the police and a total lack of moral fibre among the citizenry in the face of hard times. The salon and adjoining study, however, were draped in the tassels of a cushioned fin de siècle.

  ‘Delinquents, Kohler,’ he went on. ‘Girls as young as thirteen.’ He gave the daughter a stern glance. ‘Boys of ten. Not a week ago the savage mugging of a Blitzmädel in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Four of them attacked her. While the one shoved her back on to the toilet, another snatched her cap away, another the handbag, the last one darting in to pummel her breasts and yank her hair. Bruises, I tell you. Bruises, Kohler.’

  Mein Gott, Rudi hadn’t been the only one to know of it!

  ‘ “Boche pig,” they shouted,’ continued Rouget. ‘ “Fascist scum! Communist-killer! Go home where you belong.” ’

  He’d take a breath now, decided Rouget. He’d show this Kripo how lawless the city had become. ‘I ask you, Kohler. What, please, would you do if you were me, when these boys were brought before you? Understand that when cornered, one of them brandished a knife.’

  Louis’s boys … The cognac, normally long in its breath, burned the throat, the Choix Supreme offering no comfort. The judge, wife and daughter were all watching him closely. Madame Rouget—Vivienne, he reminded himself—having taken command of things had suddenly lost it with the judge’s opening barrage and now sat so tensely, she was unaware of constantly picking at her fingernails, the daughter sitting like a harried little mouse, but something would have to be said. ‘Judge, my partner and I haven’t yet been briefed on the assault. We’ve been kept busy ever since we got in last night.’

  ‘We’ll come to that.’

  ‘Was this Blitzmädel able to give the investigating police accurate descriptions of the boys?’

  Had it been a plea for extenuating circumstances? ‘Surely you must be aware, Kohler, that in such cases everything happens far too quickly. The girl was in shock—mon Dieu, who wouldn’t have been? Her stockings were ruined.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  Was it clemency Kohler wanted? ‘They will be caught. They will definitely be brought before me along with their parents. Communists, are they? The Höherer-SS and Polizeiführer Karl Oberg is insisting on the severest of sentences and will expect it of me. A uniform has been disgraced. It’s no small matter.’

  Uniforms were sacred and, yes, Oberg did have designs on taking over the French police, but … ‘Judge, just how sure are you that the girl was threatened with a knife?’

  ‘Very. Two days ago I was in Karl’s office to discuss another matter. He had the girl brought in to tell me herself. He’s being considerate, I must say, and doesn’t want the case publicized until it’s settled. Now what, exactly, was it that you wanted to ask my daughter?’

  ‘Yes, please do ask,’ breathed Vivienne.

  Whereas the judge was corpulent and big-boned, the wife was delicate and definitely one of les hautes, yet defiantly wary and absolutely under that one’s thumb—was that it, eh? The soft auburn hair was worn swept up and back. The eyebrows were perfect, the eyes not mud-brown like the judge’s but azure, the lips tight as a quick breath was impatiently held, the chin defiant under a scrutiny she didn’t appreciate.

  ‘Inspector, I asked you to tell us,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, bon, madame. For some reason your daughter, having arranged for two of last night’s victims to meet in the afternoon at the Café de la Paix, chose not to be present. I’d like to know why.’

  Had Hercule not put him in his place? wondered Vivienne. ‘There was no reason for her to have been present. Madame Guillaumet needed a vélo-taxi driver she could depend on; Madame Barrault knew of such a one.’

  But was it as simple as that?

  The judge, as if deliberating in court, had bowed his head to study knitted hands that could well have been those of a plumber. The double chin and jowls drooped, the forehead was wide and high, the jet-black, greying hair well oiled and combed back to frame the grimmest of countenances, the full lips drawn into a pout, the eyes half-closed, so deep was he in thought and waiting for detective questions.

  ‘Madame, how was it that your daughter even knew Madame Barrault would be familiar with that café or know of the taxi driver?’

  ‘Henriette …’ began the daughter, like a frightened little mouse.

  ‘Denise, let me,’ said the mother firmly. ‘Madame Henriette Morel has many times informed my daughter of that woman’s “familiarity” with the café, Inspector, and the company that stepsister of hers chooses to keep. It seemed the most suitable of rendezvous. Denise merely put forward the suggestion to both women during each of their respective counselling interviews.’

  ‘I’m with the SN, Inspector. I’m …’

  ‘Denise, offer nothing. Your mother is before the bench.’

  ‘Papa …’

  ‘Daughter, hold your tongue.’

  ‘
Hercule, please,’ said Vivienne. ‘I must be allowed to continue. Denise has advanced degrees in social work, Inspector, and is employed by the Famille du Prisonnier, which is now under the Secours National, the National Help, whose Maison du Prisonnier is on place Clichy.’

  The maisons, though few and far between, were one of those rare places where the wives of prisoners of war could go for help they invariably wouldn’t get, but what the hell was bothering this little family other than the immediate presence of an uninvited Kripo?

  ‘I have my office there, Inspector. Madame Morel drops in from time to time.’

  ‘She makes a nuisance of herself and is not of our class,’ said the mother, raising a forefinger to silence the daughter. ‘Her stepsister is a good twenty years younger and quite naturally the woman is concerned.’

  ‘Marie-Léon Barrault hasn’t been sleeping well,’ offered the daughter stubbornly.

  ‘Worried about her husband, is she?’

  Would Herr Kohler really understand? wondered Denise. ‘They all are. Certainly those who have been …’

  ‘Running around?’

  ‘Denise, did I not instruct you?’ demanded the judge.

  ‘Judge, leave it,’ said Kohler with a sigh, and then …

  Vivienne waited.

  ‘Just how certain are you, mademoiselle, that Madame Barrault and Madame Guillaumet were really up to mischief behind their husbands’ backs?’

  ‘Denise thinks …’

  ‘Let her answer, madame. You, too, Judge.’

  ‘Adultery is a very serious crime, Kohler, for which the maréchal and our government in Vichy have seen fit to strengthen the law.’

  They had done so in 1942 and had made it stiff for the delinquent wife, not nearly so for the husband even if he wasn’t away on holiday in the Reich, but would nothing shut the judge up?

  ‘Please do not forget that there are more than one-and-a-half million of our boys in your prisoner-of-war camps, Kohler. Fully sixty percent of them are married; most between the ages of twenty and forty, so their wives are also young but have urges they can’t seem to control.’

  ‘Urges …’ muttered Vivienne, only to silence herself.