Mayhem

by J. Robert Janes

  In black and white, Kohler and he stood on opposite sides of the boy’s body.

  ‘You are being blamed for his murder, Monsieur Louis! Blamed!’ she blurted, banging the table with a fist.

  St-Cyr tried to comfort her by a gentle massage of the shoulders. The seamstresses – older, married women – glanced fiercely their way. A plate glass divider. No privacy at all, well, so be it. ‘I see that I have my friends,’ he said gently. ‘That is so good at a time like this, Sylviane. Me, I will never forget it.’

  ‘Julian’s being a pig! He refused to see you. He … he has said I was to send you away, that he wanted nothing more to do with you.’

  ‘He’s forgiven. It’s only understandable he be cautious for… for all of your sakes.’ The coward!

  The girl flung herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. ‘Me, I will slash their tyres, Monsieur Louis!’

  ‘No … No, you will do no such thing. You will toss me out on to that street and scream at me never to come back, eh? Then you will throw that fistful of photographs at me.’

  It was so brave of him, so considerate. Ah, Mon Dieu … to think of such a thing at a time like this!

  Short and just as petite as Chantal Grenier, Sylviane Valcourt stood on tiptoe and pressed her fine young body against him. All of it. A kiss of such passion, he had to think of that other young girl, that student … Liline … the girl with the shoes and the swollen jaw.

  A time for love, and a time for death. Danger! Always danger! Was it this that attracted the young girls to him?

  Or the lack of suitable young men? The war and the forced labour had taken so many.

  She brushed an uncertain hand over his face, let her fingers linger on his moustache – still kept herself pressed against him. The smile she gave was brave. ‘So, my Monsieur Louis, the great detective, me I will do exactly as you have asked but please do not take what I am about to say down there as the truth, eh?’

  At his nod, they parted but still she lingered. Not looking at him now, shy – was she being shy? – she fingered the table top, hesitated a moment, then said, a whisper, ‘I’ve learned to cook. I’m a good housekeeper, Monsieur Louis. Me, I could still work here but I… I could be so useful.’

  St-Cyr chucked her under the chin and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Come and help me now, eh? Come on, let’s give them something to remember.’

  The Galeries Lafayette was crowded but safe. Its magnificent cupola of wrought iron and glass rose through the layer cake of columned floors to tower above them.

  Department stores were such suitable places for meetings. Jérome Noel had even used this one. July 7th to be precise. At 4.17 p.m., on the main floor. In full view of every passer-by.

  Hermann was late and he wasn’t himself.

  ‘Louis, I’ve got an idea we should get out of town for a few days. Question the monks – give them a thorough going-over. Pry away at the countess’s armour. Try the Arcuri woman again. Her ice is bound to break for you. She’ll be sure to climb into the sack.’

  ‘Three days?’

  ‘Yes, three should do it. Von Schaumburg and Boemelburg have okayed a week. The first is insisting; the second agreeing because Berlin has reluctantly said he must. If we wrap it up in fine style we might just get off with a lecture.’

  ‘And Ackermann? What does he have to say about things?’ Was Hermann looking slightly green or was it simply the lighting?

  Kohler took an agitated drag at his cigarette. ‘Oberg, over on the avenue Foch, wants to see us.’

  The Butcher of Poland, the head of the Secret Service of the SS in France and Ackermann’s new boss.

  ‘We’re in the shit, Louis. I’m sorry. The best thing we can do is to take a little trip. Boemelburg isn’t exactly in total agreement. He wants the diamonds in his safe. You’ve still got them, haven’t you? You’ve not lost them? You can’t have done that!’

  He was positively shaking.

  ‘Pharand?’ asked St-Cyr.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to see him if I were you. The diamonds, Louis? Don’t keep me in suspense.’

  Sometimes prying things out of Hermann was difficult. Clearly Boemelburg didn’t want them leaving town. ‘And Ackermann?’ he demanded again. One had to be tough.

  ‘The bastard’s challenged me to a duel. It’s strictly against the law – German law, Louis. Gestapo law and SS law. Pistols at thirty paces. A match pair. God knows where he got them.’

  A duel… ‘Perhaps the countess loaned them to him.’

  ‘Agreed?’ asked Kohler of the trip. Boemelburg could stick the diamonds. ‘I’ve been by your place to pick up your things. I even spoke to your housekeeper. Everything’s okay. The geraniums …’

  ‘The diamonds are still in the inside pocket of my jacket, so stop worrying so much.’

  ‘It’s you who ought to be worried,’ breathed Kohler, pinching out the fag.

  ‘Yes … yes, I know. Perhaps I should ask the Reverend Father to let me join the monks. But three days, Hermann? Is it that you’ve bartered for the release of my wife?’

  Had word already got round? Gott in Himmel … ‘Steiner’s being sent to where his cock will be of only one use to him if he can get it out in the cold.’

  The Russian Front at Stalingrad. ‘Then let us go to Vouvray. Marianne can choose what is best for her and hopefully she’ll be there when we return.’

  Did Louis have to be so naïve? With luck von Schaumburg would have got the films out of Brother Glotz’s hands by then and had the blasted things destroyed!

  With luck Boemelburg and his boys would have pulled in the girl with the broken shoes and found out who all her friends were.

  Perhaps no one would decide to take a shot or two at them. Perhaps the Resistance from Melun would leave them alone until the case was settled and they could clean those bastards out in style, sans Louis of course.

  Maybe Ackermann would forget about his duel. Maybe … maybe …

  ‘It’s all right, Hermann. You watch my back and me, I’ll be sure to watch yours, eh?’

  ‘Then rest a little easier, my French Frog friend. I went past Gestapo HQ on the fly and swiped us two Schmeissers and seven hundred rounds apiece for good measure.’

  There were a dozen stick grenades lying loosely on the floor of the car.

  St-Cyr planted his feet among them and hung on as they lost their Gestapo tails.

  6

  The morning was crisp and clear, the wind in off the Atlantic and up the valley of the Loire to threaten an early blizzard. The sound of church bells was resonant.

  Kohler and St-Cyr stood in the midst of Vouvray’s largest cemetery. A crowd had gathered in the distance round the entrance to the church – the curious, the uninvited. Murder always brought them. There’d be whispers, questions – rumours of incest perhaps.

  The church’s slate-roofed bell tower and spire rose to a substantial cross which had defied all weathers and all wars since the mid-sixteenth century. The horse-drawn hearses were parked well to the far side; the only cars – that of the countess and that of the local German Kommandant – were to the other.

  St-Cyr brought his gaze back to the pair of open graves at their feet. One thing was certain. They buried deeply in these parts.

  So, too, was another. ‘The perruches, Hermann. That silicious clay with its flint boulders. They don’t just grow grapes in it.’

  Kohler stubbed out his cigarette and thought about flicking the butt into one of the graves. Decently he pocketed it. ‘Why the two graves, Louis?’

  ‘My thought precisely, Hermann. You’re improving. Why isn’t Brother Jérome being buried at the monastery?’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Several. The countess may well have intervened on the family’s behalf; the abbot might not have wanted to go against her wishes but then … and I stress this … perhaps, in his wisdom, he saw advantage in not claiming Brother Jérome’s body. But then again, Hermann, has a feud developed between the parish priest and the abb
ot? Ah now, that is a distinct possibility. Perhaps the priest has insisted on a double-barrelled burial and the countess has sided with him. One thing is certain. Authority has been challenged and custom breached.’

  ‘You going inside?’

  St-Cyr tapped out his pipe against a tombstone. ‘Cover the curious and the whole of this place. Have a look for Charles Maurice Thériault just in case he’s had a twinge of conscience and come to pay his last respects. Me, I will step inside as you have suggested, to study the mourners as they view the bodies.’

  ‘Enjoy yourself. I’m taking a Schmeisser with me.’

  ‘No one’s going to shoot up a funeral. Not in France. Even the Resistance will show some respect.’

  ‘Ask Yvette that when you blow her a kiss, or are you planning to lean over the girl and bring her back to life?’

  Funerals brought out the worst in Hermann. ‘I’m not sure the caskets will be open, but in the countryside it’s usually the case, no matter what the damage.’

  Louis could always be counted on to add that pleasant touch. Kohler grinned hugely. ‘I ought to let you have the last word, my fine Frog friend, but I simply have to say, Don’t do anything in there I wouldn’t do.’

  ‘For a man who has been challenged to a duel, you’re extremely light-hearted?’

  ‘Ackermann didn’t come, chum!’

  It was on the tip of St-Cyr’s tongue to say, Let’s wait and see, eh, but he left it.

  One had to do things like that with Hermann. Having the last word was important to him.

  The church was packed. The bells continued – did they ring them twice as long if there were two burials? Everyone but the priest, his two assistants and the altar boys was at their rosaries or sitting stiffly. All in black. Not a suit or a dress of brown. He’d stick out like a sore thumb but … ah, Mon Dieu, it couldn’t be helped. Funerals were so useful. They brought so many together in one place.

  The abbot, for instance, and Brother Michael, the monastery’s wine maker and mentor of Brother Jérome.

  Only one other monk was present – all three of them sat at the very front, next the aisle, but on the right side.

  The third monk was the farthest from the aisle, a younger man with tears in his eyes, by the look. Much weeping. Yes … yes, it was so. Could it be that Brother Michael was gripping him firmly by the hand in hopes of calming him?

  Was that third monk Brother Sebastian, the beekeeper Jérome had made unjust accusations against?

  The monk was of about forty-five or fifty years of age – very strongly built. The neck and head were those of a wrestler, the shoulders also.

  But why the tears if he’d been wrongly accused? Why indeed?

  The countess, Gabrielle Arcuri and her son, René Yvon-Paul, sat in the second row across the aisle and behind the immediate family of the deceased.

  The caskets were open. Lilies … White lilies … Where had they got them at this time of year and in a country at war?

  From the south, from Provence perhaps? A greenhouse …

  The lilies were of silk and he knew then that the countess had seen to everything but that she hadn’t asked her distant cousin from Germany to help.

  Grateful for the advantage standing gave him, St-Cyr was still perturbed that he couldn’t see as well as he’d have liked.

  It was going to be a long funeral.

  A columned balcony ran along both sides of the church and led to the bell tower and the ringer of the bells. The stained-glass windows were magnificent, so, too, the frescoes in the vaulted ceiling. The community had much to thank the Family Thériault for. The silver service, the candlesticks, the richly embroidered altar cloth and cushions no doubt, the seats of course, the newish roof – perhaps two hundred years old – the robes the priestly folk wore, even the ring the people kissed and the illuminated Bible.

  There was only one way to get a brown suit and tweed overcoat out of this.

  St-Cyr squeezed along the wall, nodded apologies to four of the pallbearers who’d all been through this sort of thing thousands of times and, in spite of their objections, went up the stairs to the balcony.

  It was such a view. Perfect! Magnificent! The smell of incense was all around him. They were burning lavender to which a trace of cinnamon had been added.

  Keeping to the outside of the balcony, he moved towards the altar until he came at last to stand in the shadow of one of the columns.

  Gabrielle Arcuri and the countess both wore veils. Completely dressed in black, the mirage looked very estranged, very sad and poignant – a war widow, so many things. But Russian? he asked. Did Natasha Kulakov Myshkin look Russian?

  Did the countess even know her son’s wife had been the daughter of a very wealthy family who’d found favour at the court of the Romanovs? Would she have believed it if she’d been told?

  Somehow he didn’t think the countess would know. Gabrielle Arcuri would have kept that little slice of her past entirely to herself just as the owner of the Lune Russe had said.

  So, perhaps a small stint as a streetwalker after all? Just to pay the necessary bills and get established.

  She was holding her son’s hand. The boy looked afraid – terrified that something would happen – but then, don’t all boys of that age worry at funerals?

  The caskets were near. Though in death and wax, yet the resemblances between Jérome Noel and René Yvon-Paul were striking.

  Not so Yvette who, beneath the wax, the face powder, rouge and lipstick, had the coarseness of both her mother and father.

  Madame Noel, a plumpish woman in her early fifties, was weeping buckets but did she weep not only for her lost children but also because she’d been the one to tell Jérome who his real father had been? At fifty some women do get twinges of conscience about such things, especially if a son is about to give himself to God and so must have the truth.

  The face of the father, a man in his early sixties, was impassive; that of the abbot the same. Grim, taciturn and unforgiving. Angry too.

  If only Yvette could tell him what had really happened. If only the girl would sit up suddenly and shout it out.

  Her hands were clasped. Three lilies and her rosary had been placed in them. Even from a distance of perhaps twenty-five metres, St-Cyr could tell the funeral parlour had worked miracles and touched her up like a chef with a fallen cake. There was no sign of the bullet that had killed her. The eyes were closed and she slept. The wedding dress was white and of lace, her mother’s perhaps? Ah no, the grandmother’s. The end of the family. No need to save such things any more.

  Gone … gone to ashes and to dust.

  With Jérome they’d not been so successful or perhaps they hadn’t cared so much. One could still detect the place where the boulder had struck him.

  Although there were other possibilities – Charles Maurice Thériault in particular – St-Cyr felt certain that somewhere below him was the murderer of Jérome Noel.

  But not that of his sister? he asked. Was her killer absent?

  Kohler cursed their luck as the Daimler turned into the graveyard and drove slowly to the church. Ackermann had brought his driver and adjutant with him, and one other man – his second perhaps. Heaps of cut flowers: three white wicker baskets for a couple of kids he didn’t even know – or did he? – and three large wreaths. A classic National Socialist barf? Flowers and concern for those you’d bumped off?

  All were SS and in uniform. The son-of-a-bitch had duel written all over him and so did the other two. Now what the hell was he going to do? Leave Louis to it and scram?

  Ackermann took one frozen look his way before marching swiftly to the door and whipping off his cap.

  In under the left arm with it. Ja … Ja, that is correct, Herr General!

  The adjutant yanked the church door open and snapped to attention. Stiff as a pecker at dawn and beautifully done.

  The other one took a little longer to survey him. No smiles, just an emptiness that was unsettling.

  They fo
llowed the general into the church. The flowers and the wreaths were stuffed in after them by willing assistants and no doubt passed from hand to hand and up to the front to announce their late arrival.

  So good of Ackermann. Some guys had what it took.

  ‘Ah, Mon Dieu, Brigitte, that’s the one I saw Jérome with. Me, I am certain of it,’ whispered the shopgirl nearest him.

  ‘Are you sure?’ whispered her friend. Both of the girls were in their mid-teens and had obviously got time off from work.

  Brown Eyes said, ‘Positive! Jérome got into his car – me, I recognize it – but they were alone, Brigitte. At dusk.’

  ‘When?’ Kohler heard himself ask like a voice from another planet.

  ‘When?’ blurted Brown Eyes, glancing apprehensively up at him. Ah no, a cop!

  Kohler nodded. The girl flicked her eyes at her friend and then back again. ‘Last summer – in June … the middle of June. Yes … yes, I am certain. They … they drove down to the river.’

  Oh, did they now? ‘At dusk?’

  ‘Yes … Yes, it was at dusk.’

  ‘And you followed them? You were on your bicycle?’

  The brown eyes fled to the church. She’d just known today would be a disaster. First her period and now … now this. ‘Are you from the police?’ she asked, summoning a courage beyond her years.

  ‘I’m from Marseilles. I came up because I’m a distant relative of the Noels. We heard about things and wanted to see if there was anything we could do.’

  The girl tossed her wavy hair and stared straight ahead. From Marseilles, eh? More like Munich! ‘Me, I did not have my bicycle with me, monsieur. I did not follow them to the river.’

  Oh yeah? Kohler gripped the two of them firmly by the arm and hustled them out of the crowd. When they reached the open graves, he let go of them. ‘Now start talking. I’m from the Gestapo. Everything your little hearts can cough up unless you want to find yourselves in one of these.’

  They both began to cry. At fifteen or sixteen years of age what else would one have done? ‘Look, I’ve been a lousy father but I need to know a few things, eh? A life may well be in danger. Real danger. Another murder perhaps.’