Schwaben … Was the accent from there? ‘Jawohl, Colonel. I’m looking for my partner.’
‘Then you’ll be disappointed.’
Were the SS hunting for Hermann? ‘Gabrielle might have heard from him.’
St-Cyr hadn’t moved from the doorway and looked as if to bolt. ‘She’ll not have heard unless within the last ten minutes. Ach, bitte. Close the door. Though I love the sound of her voice, the shouting and applause I find disturbing. Would you care for one of those?’ The cigarettes were indicated. ‘I’m sure Madame Thériault won’t mind.’
Her married name had been used as a definite hint to that ‘nothing’ murder. As then, there had been Russian cigarettes, but had the case been purposely left open on her dressing table in defiance of this SS since the Russians were now getting the better of the Reich?
This Sûreté couldn’t help but notice the other items the ‘Arcuri’ woman had left out: a glass of the Château Thériault’s demi-sec, the vineyards near Vouvray, a wedge of chèvre crottin with a dusting of herbs and dill, some slices of a baguette, these last forbidden by law and therefore subject to both a fine and prison sentence or forced labour.
Everything registered clearly in St-Cyr’s expression, including concern over why she had been so foolish as to not have anticipated a visitor from the SS.
‘Standartenführer …’ blurted this Schweinebulle who placed honesty and truth above all else, as did Kohler, the two of them having incurred the wrath of so many of Paris’s SS and Gestapo, especially for what had happened at that same château.
‘Bitte, mein lieber französischer Oberdetektiv, Hjalmar Langbehn à votre service.’
The heels were smoothly brought together but hardly a sound from the jackboots was heard, a slim hand extended and taken since it had to be. ‘Colonel, what brings you here?’
A certain Blitzmädel’s handbag, was that what was worrying St-Cyr? ‘A little supper—oh, not those.’
The glass of wine he had wished for, St-Cyr knew, when Gabi had shared the repast with him at the Château Thériault’s mill on the Loire.
‘Those have, I gather, been left for yourself in welcome on your return from Alsace, but …’
He would leave a little pause, thought Langbehn. It always seemed to unsettle those who did not wish to reveal more than possible, and St-Cyr was definitely one of them. ‘Mademoiselle Arcuri has kindly agreed to be my guest at Chez Francis.’
The Alsatian restaurant on place de l’Alma had long been a legend in its own right, but before the Defeat several of its waiters and sous-chefs had been spies and fifth columnists for the Reich. Now, of course, they owned and ran the restaurant.
A cardboard suitcase—nothing so fine as from Vuitton or Hermès—lay tucked behind the colonel’s chair, but had he noticed it? Did Gabi now keep it packed and ready to take into hiding at a moment’s notice—had things become that desperate for her even within the past ten days?
One might never know. Such suitcases had come with the disappearance of leather to the Reich, but they had one great advantage: so common and identical were they, few among the Occupier could differentiate and they could, if confronted by a control, be casually slid in amongst others at a railway station and left behind.
‘These blackout crimes,’ said Langbehn. ‘Brief me on your progress—I trust such has been made?’
Had Oberg ordered this one to look into the matter? Fortunately Sonja Remer’s handbag was still hidden under the overcoat. ‘I’ll just go out to the courtyard to see if my partner might have finally arrived. Hermann often chooses to come in that way but has trouble closing the doors.’
‘Gut, then both of you can brief me. I understand that Judge Rouget’s daughter was at the Drouant last night with Gaston and Madame Morel when he and the stepsister of the latter were attacked.’
‘Give me but a moment. I’ll be right back.’
Outside and standing in the rain, St-Cyr knew that the colonel might well look around the dressing room and find things he shouldn’t. There’d been an Eisernes Kreuz First-Class at the neck of that uniform, and from that other war, Wehrmacht wound and flak badges too, and the 1939 clasp and bar with Nazi eagle and swastika in silver gilt, the double braiding and skull and crossbones on the cap, an SS-Dienstauszeichnungen also, the long-service award with SS runes and ribbon signifying twelve years of absolute loyalty.
But now … now the Standartenführer wasn’t simply a soldier but an administrator, one of the Totenkopverbände who ran the concentration camps, and hadn’t Hermann and he had to visit the camp at Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace not three, or was it four days ago?
A granite quarry whose cruelty had been matched by the harshness of winter in the mountains of the Vosges.
The rain was icy when he lifted his face to it. There was, of course, absolutely no sign of Hermann who knew all about this courtyard and stage door but would have blithely roared in through the front entrance to chat up the coat-check girls before taking in a bit of the show and making his way through to the bar.
But where was he when most needed? Had he found Giselle?
The bed was Empire and of mahogany that gleamed but Élène Artur wasn’t in it. She had spun away to the far side, had been caught by an ankle, had kicked, scrambled up, run to the dressing table and seized something—a letter opener. Had she defied her assailants with it? She had knocked over a perfume bottle, the toilet water, rouge, talcum powder, face cream and other things. A hand mirror had then been thrown. Where … where the hell had she got to? Had she managed to get away?
They had caught her by the hair and had thrown her down. One had pinned her head and hands against the carpet, but she’d bitten his left wrist or hand, had bitten deeply—there was blood on the carpet, not much, but enough.
The door to an adjacent room was all but closed … ‘Go on, you must,’ he said aloud. Louis wouldn’t expect it of him. Louis would say, Hermann, leave this to me!
But Louis wasn’t here and all the sounds of that other war were coming at him now, the stench, too, of cordite and of mouldering earth and entrails. The blast had been so loud the ears had been stunned and they hadn’t heard the humming of the shrapnel as it had filled the air. Young Heinrich—Grenadier Oberlan and one hell of a shot, age eighteen who had never been with a girl, let alone the one whose photo he carried—had run blindly through the deep snow among the shattered, decapitated fir trees at Vieil Armand on that mountainside to the west of Colmar in Alsace in that first winter of 1914–1915, his hands desperately trying to contain the guts that were spilling from him.
Heinrich had tripped on them and had lain there blinking up at the one who had always told him, Hey, mein Lieber, don’t worry. I’m going to look after you.
His legs had still been moving. ‘You promised,’ he had managed. Nothing else, the bright red, grey to plum-purple, net-veined, sticky tubular coils slithering flaccidly from between slackening fingers, the heart beating and then not, the uniform in shreds.
‘Louis … Louis, they cut her open and let her run.’
‘Giselle … ? She hasn’t been to the club, Jean-Louis.’
Gabrielle struck a match, the sound of it reverberating throughout the dressing room, she to fix him with a gaze that said, as the match was extended to light the cigarette she had given him, Look after my René Yvon-Paul. I don’t know what this one wants of me.
Her son was only ten years old and lived with his grandmother at Château Thériault, but Langbehn was watching closely.
A wrap was found, the Standartenführer putting it about her shoulders then taking her overcoat from its peg, she slipping into it as that one held it for her, she knowing there was little she could say, not even, Jean-Louis, how I’ve missed you, only, ‘I understand from the colonel that you and Herr Kohler are working around the clock.’
Herr Kohler, not Hermann. ‘As always.’ They couldn’t signal to each other, nor could he warn her of just how desperate things had become.
Alone, St-C
yr budgetted the cigarette. She didn’t use them often, but when she did, the tobacco was invariably Russian. There was, of course, a phial of Mirage on her dressing table. In the old days, the good days between the two most recent wars, Muriel Barteaux, the source of that perfume, had been a regular patron of Gabi’s, listening to her at the Lune Russe and others of the chanteuse clubs, but then there’d been a long hiatus: marriage and motherhood for Gabi, and then the Defeat and widowhood had come and, miracle of miracles word had spread, and there that voice was again, so much so that Muriel had created Mirage for what had appeared on the stage of this club.
Muriel and Chantal Grenier were old and dear friends, well into their seventies, their shop Enchantment on place Vendôme—exquisite lingerie and perfumes, bath soaps and salts and much, much more but always crowded with German generals, et cetera since the Ritz was right next door. Had the location meaning for Hermann and himself, especially as the Trinité victim had planned to go to that hotel?
Though he had spoken often of the shop, Giselle wouldn’t have sought refuge there. She didn’t even know her way across the Seine from the Sixth into the First. The river was like a moat to her.
Sonja Remer’s handbag haunted him and he unbuttoned his coat, took it out, held the Tokarev, checked it as one always should and wondered again where it all must lead. No note or word of warning could be left for Gabrielle, lest it be found or heard by others. The Standartenführer’s little visit could mean nothing or everything. Hermann might know something but where had he got to? Had he found Giselle safe?
The girl would have been distraught. Being banished couldn’t have sat well with her. She’d have gone in search of a friendly face—some of the nearby shops specialized in magic and the reading of fortunes. A realist, she liked at times to kid herself but wasn’t overly superstitious, as were many prostitutes, and why must the cop in him never forget where she’d come from? She was far too intelligent for such a profession anyway, far too sensible but of her own mind always. She would have found those other doors just as shut to her in any case, since the House of Madame Chabot serviced the neighbourhood and what that one said, others obeyed or else.
It would still have been daylight. The café Les Deux Magots was a little to the west but she could easily have gone there, it being on the corner opposite the Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés. One of the largest Soldatenheim, the troop hostels, was on the rue Saint-Benoît and just around the corner. Lots of friendly faces, lots of interest in her, or had she gone into the church to beg forgiveness for having slept with one of the enemy, only to then catch the métro and try to find her way back to Oona? Had she impulsively caught a vélo-taxi, been followed, been taken into one of the air-raid shelters to be beaten, raped, murdered—terrorized first? There’d been no alerte but those doors were never locked. She was street-wise—mon Dieu, she’d have had to be. Hadn’t Hermann used her in more than one investigation?
Had he gone to the rue des Saussaies to see if she’d been picked up and taken there? Was he even looking for her?
‘Giselle … ?’ It couldn’t be her, thought Kohler, and yet the feet were as hers, the small of this one’s back, the shoulders, the way she had run, had suddenly stepped up on to the chaise longue and then had stepped down to the carpet on the other side, all in a hurry, all in terror, she then tripping to fall to her hands and knees, to pause, to try to understand …
‘Giselle,’ he heard himself saying again as if dazed and wandering among shell-shattered trenches and through the acrid fog of no-man’s-land. ‘Giselle?
‘It’s Élène Artur, damn it.’
Pale and flaccid, glistening still, net-veined, dark-red, blood-red, grey-white and blue—pale yellow where there was a little fat—intestines were coiled about her left ankle. At first, on being disembowelled, she had tried to catch herself, to stop the viscera from spilling from her. In shock, some sense of what was happening must have come but then she had collapsed on to her left side, the legs fully extending only to be drawn in and up.
Faeces and urine stained the carpet to mingle with the blood and other fluids that seemingly were everywhere. ‘Élène Artur,’ he said again, the voice a broken whisper, for the jet-black hair he mustn’t touch was that of Giselle and so like hers, the image of her kept coming at him.
Rigor was still present. The eyes were wide and clouded—dust would have collected. Blood had erupted from both nostrils. The teeth, what could be seen of them, were very white and straight—she’d not used tobacco, couldn’t have drunk much coffee, real or ersatz, or black tea—had been gagged by a silk stocking that had been forced between the jaws and tied behind the head. Tied tightly—too tightly. They’d done that after she’d bitten one of them. After.
Semen had trickled down the left thigh to be smeared as she had run, but there were only traces of this that could be seen, hidden as it was by the rest, but definitely rape beforehand.
‘Élène Artur,’ he said yet again. She’d been dead for about twenty-four hours, would have been brought here from the Lido at about what? Eleven forty? Twelve midnight, maybe? The call to the district commissariat had been made at 11.13 p.m. She had first been forced to contact the press. Here, then, at half after midnight, or maybe 1.00 a.m. at the latest, the concierge sound asleep. Had they known this too?
The face was swollen, livid and blotchy. There were deep bruises on the neck where she’d been held during the rape, showers of petechial haemorrhages under the eyes and across the bridge of the nose and the cheeks. Some of the slate-blue to reddish-purple blotches on the lower parts of the left buttock, thigh and calf were due to postmortem hypostasis and would have to be sorted from the bruises. There were abrasions and scratches—several cuts as well, the flesh having been laid open, the assailant darting in with a cutthroat?
‘A knife—but what kind of knife, damn it? That was no cutthroat.’
The right breast had been cleanly and deeply sliced open by one slash that extended down through the nipple. That shoulder had also been opened and then the forearm as she had managed to pull free and had tried to fend him off only to have that arm grabbed again by the other assailant, the one who had come up behind her. The knife had been pulled away after she’d been cut open. Blood had shot from its blade, lots of blood that had, only at the last, dribbled from it.
Had the bastard known how to butcher? Had he been a butcher?
‘That knife, it’s not the usual.’ Louis and Armand Tremblay would have to see her just as she was, but Judge Rouget wasn’t going to like what had happened in his little nest. Hercule the Smasher would have to run to Oberg to beg that one’s help in hushing things up. Oberg would love it, since the judge, the judicial system and the night-action trials would then be even more within that grasping fist, the police too, and wasn’t that really what Oberg wanted most?
Yes, Oberg would have to hear of it but first from this Kripo. There wasn’t any sense in trying to avoid the issue or prolong the agony. It would be expected of him and he had best do that, but first, a little look around so as to have the background needed to save one’s ass if possible.
‘But what sort of knife would leave a spurt of blood that long when withdrawn?’ he asked. ‘A blade but not like butchers use even for the smaller cuts, since the thing must have collected one hell of a lot of blood in a groove or something to have had it spurt off the end like that when removed.’
The washbasin was clean, the floor as well, but one had to ask, Why so tidy when one had left such a mess? Why not simply flick ash on to the floor? Impulse, had that been it? One of long familiarity and care?
They hadn’t taken her handbag. One of them—the one with the cigar—had dumped it out on a side table in the salle de séjour and had dropped a little ash, which had been quickly but not completely wiped away. Again a tidy man. Well dressed? he had to ask. One who knew the judge and had used the flat before and perhaps often?
ID, ration cards and tickets had been taken as with other victims but also t
o slow identification, though here there had been just too many holes in the sieve for them to have plugged and they hadn’t figured on Didier Valois forking up the address and name of the judge’s petite amie, had thought instead that Hercule the Smasher would have found her first. Not Louis or himself, but Rouget who would then have run to Oberg—had they known that’s what he’d do? Had they understood him and the use of this flat so well they had counted on it and felt supremely confident and safe from honest detectives who might just start asking questions?
But why empty the handbag, why not simply take it as with other victims?
When Kohler found her wedding ring, he instinctively knew it was one of those little breaks every detective longed for and that her killers must have wanted it as proof.
The ring had fallen to the malachite top of the table and had bounced on to the carpet, there to roll out and across the parquet before hiding itself under the far corner of the radiator.
Opening the valve, Kohler bled off the entrapped air to silence the radiator’s pinging he must have been hearing all along. ‘I haven’t any other choice, Louis,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry but I’m going to have to go to the avenue Foch and might just as well do so now and get it over with while I still have what it takes.’
But first, he would have to take a look in the toilet. That, too, couldn’t be avoided, especially as the parquet had been mopped but not completely.
Numéro 11 rue des Saussaies was as blacked out as the rest of the city at seven minutes past midnight, now Saturday, 13 February 1943—how had Hermann and himself lasted this long? wondered St-Cyr. Leaving the Citroën at kerbside where it could be more easily located if in a hurry, he avoided the front entrance. Heading up into the courtyard, he felt his way by running a hand along the inner wall, all the while listening to the streets and to the rain.
The cellars were ice cold. Water lay in pools. Dimly lit at the best of times, the corridors ran every which way. The first cells were starkly empty. Scratches gave names and dates—one couldn’t help but notice. A poem—sometimes beautifully composed; a message, if but brief; a curse that could only have made things more difficult. A ‘reinforced’ interrogation brought its echoes. Cringing with each blow, he hurried—Hermann and he had agreed to spend as little time as possible in the building, in that ‘office’ of theirs on the fifth floor.
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