by Simon Toyne
Das zuende bringen was begonnen wurde.
Finishing what was begun.
II
‘… though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.’
The Prophet
Kahlil Gibran
Extract from
DARK MATERIAL – THE DEVIL’S TAILOR: DEATH AND LIFE IN DIE SCHNEIDER LAGER
By Herman Lansky
I remember the first Nazi slogan I ever saw.
It was painted on the wall of the Great Synagogue in Łódź.
Żyd świnie, it said. Jew pigs.
It had been written sloppily in black paint, the letters dripping down the stonework. I remember being shocked and outraged by the sight of it, but not frightened. It seemed to me the spiteful act of a coward, done in haste in the middle of the night when no one else was around. It was a snipe, not a threat. That’s what I thought when I saw it, that’s what we all thought, and by the time we came out of the temple it had been scrubbed away.
This was the autumn of 1938, I can’t remember the exact date. I remember the chill of winter was already in the air and the leaves of the oak trees on Promenadowa Street were beginning to rust. I remember we walked away talking about what was happening in Germany, our conversation sparked by the graffiti but not about it. Germany was Germany and we were Polish. Polish Jews were too important to the economy for our country to be influenced by the hate-filled anti-Semitism of Hitler. A full third of the population of Łódź was Jewish. It was our town.
None of us knew that less than a year later, when the leaves turned red again, Nazi troops would march down that same street we were strolling so casually along, or that on the night of 14 November 1939 the Great Synagogue, whose wall had been marked by that splash of black paint, would be set alight, burning for days until all that was left of it was ash and ruin. No one imagined that we would be forced to sew yellow stars on to our clothes, marking us as lesser citizens of Poland, or that all our businesses and property would be taken from us, or that of the quarter of a million Jews living in Łódź at the start of the war, barely ten thousand would be alive by the end of it. We didn’t know because none of us had yet seen the true darkness in men’s souls.
But now I have.
I have seen how great evil can grow from the seed of a few hate-filled words hurriedly painted on a wall. And that is why those of us who survived and witnessed those dark and terrible things must speak of them. Silence will never defeat words of hate. Only more words can do that.
Words of sorrow.
Words of remembrance.
Words of warning.
8
Solomon was taken to the Commissariat de Police on the edge of Cordes market square and booked in by a man with a moustache so clipped and waxed it looked fake and a belly that suggested he liked food a lot more than exercise. He asked Solomon to empty his pockets and he complied slowly while checking the building for alarms and cameras. The Commissariat was old and made of stone like pretty much everything in Cordes. It felt more like a castle than a police station. It was unfortunate Solomon had needed to crash the crime scene the way he had, but when he’d seen the police were already there he knew his only chance of seeing what had happened was to go inside. Standing now inside this solid building with its narrow windows and thick walls he wasn’t convinced it had been the wisest move.
‘No ID?’ the man with the belly and neat moustache asked.
Solomon looked down at the small pile of everything he owned: an American quarter he’d found by the side of a Texas road; a shard of antique mirror; a leather string necklace with a cross made from old horseshoe nails. He opened the flap of his jacket and pointed at the label. ‘Only this.’
The officer squinted at the name and writing on the label, copied it all down then swept the items into a large envelope. Solomon was led away down a set of spiral stone stairs into a low, arched corridor in the basement of the building with whitewashed walls and a vague odour of damp and stale air and disinfectant.
‘Wait in here,’ the sergeant said, unlocking a solid steel door which opened on to a small, windowless room containing a table and two chairs.
Solomon stepped inside and the skin tightened on the back of his neck as the door was closed and locked behind him. The police officer’s shoes clipped away across the flagstones and up the spiral stairs, quieter and quieter until all he could hear was the faint buzz of the lights above him and the soft hiss from a small ventilation grille set into the wall above the door. There were no distant phones ringing or murmurs of conversation and it made Solomon realize how solid his prison was and magnified his unease at the feeling of being caged.
He stamped on the flagstones and it thumped dully, no echo, no hollow sounds, only the muffled noise of sound-waves being swallowed whole by dense stone. He made a fist and banged each wall. They all sounded the same. Solid. Impenetrable. The whole room, the entire basement probably, had been carved out of the same dense rock the city was built upon. The only wall that echoed slightly was the one with the door in it, but even that was a foot thick and made up of large stone blocks painted white to bounce the light around and keep the dust down. The door was solid too, oak or ash, with a thick, steel skin held in place by flat rivets the size of coins. There was a small window at head height, small squares of wire running through thick green safety glass. Hard to break through, even if he had the tools to do it. He moved over to the table and pulled out one of the chairs. It was tubular and light, too flimsy to break through either glass or wall. Brute force would not get him out of this room. Only thought could set him free.
He sat on the chair, took off his boots and socks then planted his feet on the cold stone floor and his hands on the tabletop. He closed his eyes and listened to the buzzing light and the silence beyond the locked door. The booking officer with the manicured moustache would be running his name through various French ID databases now. He didn’t know how long that would take to process, a while probably, and the lead investigator, the man whose gun he had taken, would be busy too – dealing with the body, processing the crime scene, talking to next of kin. Solomon was low priority for the moment. They hadn’t even charged him with anything yet. But the ticking of Solomon’s mind told him that under French law they could hold him for twenty-four hours, charge or no charge. He needed to get out of here. He’d already arrived too late, but only just. The tailor’s blood was fresh and the person who’d spilled it still close by. They had been searching for something, the upturned state of the house showed that. Maybe they’d found it. Or maybe they were still looking. And Solomon had come too far to be discouraged by the fact that the man he had come to see was dead. On the contrary, he believed that was why he was here. He knew it, deep down in the place where what truth and certainty he could call upon resided, and from the ache in his shoulder that always flared at moments of importance like these.
Solomon closed his eyes and pictured himself back at the atelier. He had discovered during his long sea passage that by concentrating on specific places and moments he had experienced he could recreate them in his mind in photo-realistic detail. All he needed was a remembered object, something solid to anchor his thoughts, and by focusing on that specific thing he could rebuild the whole scene in his mind until it was as real and detailed as if he was standing there. He could then study the memory, walk through it and analyse each object like exhibits in a museum. He could scrutinize people too, recall their conversations, picture what clothes they’d worn, the time displayed on their watches. His mind had provided a word for it – Hyperthymesia – superior autobiographical memory, a term that carried a certain degree of irony, seeing as Solomon’s own autobiography was somewhat thin. A few times he had tried focusing on his jacket, one of the few objects he possessed from before, to see if it helped him remember. But each time his mind remained blank, like he was on the edge of a seaside cliff, staring into a thick bank of fog and knowing something vast was out there but un
able to see it. That was why he had travelled so far to find the man who’d made it and felt honour-bound to find out who had killed him and why.
He took a breath and focused on the memory of the bloody words daubed on the atelier walls:
Das zuende bringen was begonnen wurde.
Finishing what was begun.
In his head the dungeon walls began to melt away and the atelier reappeared, the mannequins, the smell of blood, the scurrying of the rats. Solomon stood in the centre of it all, noticing things he had barely glimpsed before – invoices tacked to the wall by the phone, piles of paperwork stacked on the workbench, names and addresses scribbled on the backs of envelopes. One in particular caught his attention, the brand on his arm flaring in pain when he remembered it. It was written on an invoice for a storage unit in Cordes. It was a woman’s name – Marie-Claude.
Solomon rubbed at the ache in his shoulder.
Cherchez la femme, he murmured and studied the memory closer.
Look for the woman.
9
Jean-Luc Belloq was smoothing down a tablecloth and preparing for the early lunchtime crowd when Madame Segolin barged through the door, her face pink above her blue housemaid’s smock and her eyes fixed on the bar. She was not a stranger in the café but Belloq had never known her come in this early before.
‘Madame,’ he said, stepping behind the bar. ‘To what do we owe this unexpected—’
‘Brandy,’ she said, cutting him off and dabbing at her face with a florid handkerchief.
Belloq turned and started to reach for the open bottle of three-star he kept for the regulars then changed his mind and brought down the cognac from the higher shelf instead. Whatever had driven Madame to seek a drink at this early hour had to be something worth hearing and he didn’t want to blow his chances by being cheap.
‘In honour of your unexpected visit,’ he said, placing a small brandy glass on the countertop and pulling the cork out with a liquid popping sound. He poured a generous slosh of cognac into the glass. ‘On the house, of course.’
Madame Segolin grabbed the glass, closed her eyes and gulped half of it down like it was medicine. Jean-Luc placed the bottle on the bar and left the cork out, making sure the label was facing her so she would appreciate his generosity. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, madame.’
She shook her head and took another gulp of cognac. ‘Not a ghost, monsieur, a dead body.’ She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘A murdered dead body.’
Belloq dropped his voice, though there were no other patrons in the bar. ‘Who?’
She drained her glass and placed it on the bar. ‘Monsieur Engel,’ she whispered.
Belloq’s head jerked back in surprise but Madame Segolin didn’t notice. ‘I clean for him most days,’ she said, watching the cognac creep down the inside of her glass. ‘This morning I let myself in and he was lying on the floor of his workshop. I thought he may have simply fallen, but there was a terrible smell, and I saw blood, so much blood.’ She shuddered. ‘And there were rats.’
Belloq felt numb. Josef Engel. Dead. Not just dead – murdered. This was not what was supposed to happen. He would need to report it to the leadership. Tell them what had happened. They would want details. He needed to get some. ‘Have you reported it to the police?’ he asked.
Madame Segolin glared at him. ‘No, I stuffed him in a bag, mopped up all the blood and came here for a brandy! Of course I told the police. I’ve been with them for the past half an hour, telling them what I saw. Why do you think I needed a brandy?’
Belloq took the hint and refilled her glass. ‘It’s cognac, madame,’ he said. ‘A person needs more than brandy at a time like this.’
She picked up the glass and sniffed it appreciatively. ‘On the house, you said?’
‘You’ve had a terrible shock. The very least I can do is offer some comfort.’
Madame Segolin nodded as if this was only right and proper then tipped back her head and drank the whole contents of the glass in one.
‘Help yourself, madame,’ Belloq said, heading towards the back rooms. ‘I’ll be in my office if you need me.’
He stepped into the small manager’s office, closing the door behind him, and snatched the phone from his desk. He dialled a number from memory and shielded the mouthpiece with his hand the moment it connected. ‘Tell me about Josef Engel,’ he said, his voice low and tight. He listened. Nodded. Frowned. ‘Any suspects?’
He plucked a pen from a pewter tankard next to the phone and scrawled Solomon Creed on the back of a drinks order and put a question mark by it.
‘And who’s in charge of the investigation?’ He nodded wearily, wrote Benoît Amand and underlined it.
‘Let us know what he’s up to. We need to stay ahead of him on this, make sure he doesn’t get too close. You stay where you are for now and keep me up to date with any new developments – I can’t rely solely on bar gossip for information. I’ll call a meeting of the others.’
He cut off the call and dialled another number from memory.
At the bar, Madame Segolin poured herself a third cognac and shuddered at the memory of rats.
10
The man in the parked car looked up and watched the new arrival in his rear-view mirror. He was walking quickly – a man on a mission, a man with purpose. He stopped to talk to the gendarme.
‘Commandant Amand, I presume,’ he murmured under his breath, remembering the name the scanner had given him. He paused the video he had been watching on his phone and removed his earphones.
After a few seconds Amand moved away from the gendarme and walked up to the woman’s front door. He raised his hand to knock but paused. The man in the parked car knew why. Commandant Amand was carrying a heavy message, the heaviest there was, a death in the family. A violent murder. He felt a sudden rush of sorrow and regret that the woman would have to shoulder the weight of this news. He felt for the boy too, for he would bear his share of the burden by witnessing his mother’s grief.
He blinked. Shook his head. Made a fist and hit himself hard in the forehead, hard enough that he felt the dark, solid thing in his skull shift like a burning blob of molten iron.
He breathed through the pain and glanced down at his phone, the bloody image of Josef Engel’s face frozen on the screen where he’d paused it. Now was not the time for sentiment. He needed to remain focused on his greater purpose. He had come here to end Engel’s long and undeserved life and to find the list that would lead him to the others. But he had not found it at the old man’s atelier, nor in the storeroom he kept on the north side of town, which meant his granddaughter must have it. And he needed that list. He was running out of time.
He looked back up at the policeman, standing by the door, hand raised and ready to knock. The Ancient Greeks used to kill those who brought dark news to their door, but the Commandant would undoubtedly be offered a soft seat and a cup of coffee. That was what two thousand years of civilization had achieved. He was deeply suspicious of civilization. He believed in tearing clothes and howling at the sky when confronted with death, not wearing black and trying not to weep whilst people murmured bland words of condolence. The civilized practice of forgiveness was unnatural too, unnatural and unjust. It resulted in sub-human animals guilty of unimaginable crimes being allowed to live long lives in comfortable jails while their victims turned to dust and their relatives were condemned to shuffle around in numb prisons of never-ending mourning and loss. Civilization had rendered the death penalty unthinkable in most countries – even in France, where heads had rolled like bowling balls during the French Revolution.
He did not believe in civilization and he did not believe in forgiveness. He believed in justice and punishment. He believed in the Wild Hunt of old where the souls of the damned were relentlessly chased by vengeful gods until natural justice was done.
Over by the front door the Commandant straightened and knocked, loud enough that he heard it through his open car window. There was a brief paus
e then the door opened, not on the chain this time. The woman stood framed in the doorway: petite, dark-haired, pretty. She looked up at Amand, her brow creasing as she listened. Her face darkened and a look of disbelief settled on it as Commandant Amand delivered his heavy message. There was something familiar about that look. He glanced back down at his phone and there it was again, frozen on the paused image of the tailor’s bruised face, a certain arrangement of creases on the forehead produced by the same DNA and proving her ancestry. He was starting to feel regret again: about what had happened last night; about what he might have to do to get the list from the woman and her son.
He pushed the earphones back in his ears, unpaused the video and listened again to the final words of the dying tailor. He needed to remind himself what this was all for. He needed to stay focused and honest, elemental not sentimental, the vengeful god and not the sentimental man. He needed to continue the Wild Hunt until it was over and the souls of the damned had been reclaimed.
He needed to finish what was begun.
11
Marie-Claude had been all set to lay into Amand but the moment she opened the door and saw his face she realized this was not going to happen.
‘It’s your grandfather,’ he said, in a tone she had heard once before. ‘He was discovered this morning in his atelier. He’s dead. Murdered.’
She reached out to the doorframe to stop herself from falling and her vision tunnelled so that Amand suddenly seemed like he was talking to her from a long way away.
‘May I come in?’ he said.
She nodded and pointed at her bedroom door. ‘We can talk in here,’ she said, closing the front door behind them. ‘I’ll just go check on Léo.’