Mayhem

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Many times, I think. That is why she kept the diary.’

  ‘A diary? Me, I don’t know about such a thing. I never saw it.’

  Ah, Mon Dieu, must she be so difficult? ‘But you remembered the exact spot where she’d be in Fontainebleau Woods?’

  The woman flicked ash on to the floor, forgetting completely about being tidy. ‘All right, I knew of it. Jérome boasted to her of his liaisons with Hans, and Yvette wrote them down.’

  St-Cyr searched his pockets for the diary until he had the thing. For a moment he looked at it, then this, too, he tossed on to the bed between them. ‘Just before she left the club Yvette changed her clothes, then went to tell one of the Corsicans – Remi, I think it was – that…’

  ‘There’s no thinking about it, Inspector. You’re certain it was Remi, so why try to hide such a little thing?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Forgive me. Old habits … it’s the cop in me, eh? She said …’

  ‘I know what she said, Inspector. “Tell Mademoiselle Arcuri that it’s all going to be fixed.”’

  ‘The voice on the telephone. It was not that of the General Hans Ackermann, madame, but that of your husband.’

  The violet eyes were limpid pools that brimmed. ‘Madame, please listen very carefully. I am not, I repeat not against the Resistance and its objectives but my partner, Hermann, you understand, is of the Gestapo no matter what he would sometimes like me to believe. If your husband is alive and you are hiding him, then now is the time to tell me.’

  ‘And the SS General Hans Gerhardt Ackermann?’ she asked harshly. Ah damn, what was she going to do?

  ‘The general is of the enemy of course,’ said St-Cyr, feeling a sense of loss he had trouble explaining.

  As he watched, she brushed away the few tears and stubbed out the cigarette on the iron standard of the bed.

  ‘All right, you win, Inspector. You’d better come and see for yourself.’

  She stretched out a hand and stood there waiting as he snatched up the cigarette case and the diary.

  Their fingers touched. She was so close – a stunning woman, a chanteuse in great trouble, a mirage even yet.

  The pouch of diamonds was pressed into his hand. The smile she managed was soft and introspective but the moment passed so suddenly as she shrugged and said, ‘I’ll be glad when this is over even though I’ll be dead.’

  7

  The sun was almost gone, and back here, wandering in the maze, a quiet had come that was now broken only by the distant sounds of geese and guinea fowl.

  Kohler didn’t like it one bit. The cedars were too tall, too thick and pungent. Underfoot, the grass had been crushed by footsteps other than his own.

  Again he listened intently. Louis had said there must be a secret door in the tower at the centre of the maze. Mademoiselle Arcuri’s husband could then come and go as he pleased from the river and the mill. But of that tower there’d been no sight for some time. Continually he lost his sense of direction and was forced to double back. Ah merde! What the fuck was he to do?

  In desperation, he lit a cigarette and left it on the ground. From the next aisle he could barely see it through the fronds. One step … two … he drew his pistol …

  The toe of a jackboot gleamed. A fly alighted then thought better of it. Ackermann had sent his buddies. Christ!

  He turned and ran – went along another and then another aisle, hit a dead end. Shit!

  ‘Klaus, the bastard’s over here!’

  But where?

  Kohler yanked off his shoes and socks, and leaving them, backed away. The aisle was long and at its far end there were openings both to the right and left.

  ‘Helmut, I’m over here,’ shouted the one called Klaus – close, too close! ‘Let’s make the bastard sweat.’

  ‘Calls himself an SS man,’ came the answer.

  ‘Gone too French. Been saying nasty things about our general.’

  ‘There’s no cooked spinach in the SS!’ shouted the one called Helmut as he began to run. Kohler saw him and turned – Jesus, was that the other one too?

  He tore his way through the cedars and sprinted up the aisle, hit a turning and went left, then right – right!

  The banter ceased. His heart hammered. ‘Louis … Louis,’ he began, but knew he mustn’t shout.

  Moisture clung to the ancient stones of one of the château’s towers. As St-Cyr and Mademoiselle Arcuri climbed to meet her husband, their steps rang hollowly. These old châteaux … Ah, Mon Dieu, the labour of their restoration. It must go on and on for centuries.

  Embrasures gave increasing views of the grounds. At a point five storeys up, he could not help but see that Hermann was in trouble.

  The maze with its little tower was directly below them. ‘Hermann, can you hear me?’ he shouted.

  Bewildered, Kohler threw up a hand before bolting round a corner and out of sight. ‘Go left, idiot!’

  The Bavarian reappeared, doubling back. ‘Now left again.’

  ‘Klaus, he’s getting away!’

  ‘Work to the left as he’s been told, Helmut!’

  The two men were now so close to Hermann, it was only a matter of seconds until they caught him.

  Gabrielle Arcuri put her hands on the Sûreté’s shoulders and stood on tiptoe to look out over him. ‘Right – your friend must first take the right aisle, Inspector, but not go into the tower. He’d never find its secret door. Then he must run to the left and back into the cedars.’

  As Ackermann’s men bolted into the central clearing around the little tower, Hermann did as he was told. Harried, winded – terrified and in a sweat.

  ‘Now another right,’ she said, gripping the shoulders.

  St-Cyr yelled it, and then … ah, Mon Dieu … ‘Hermann, duck!’

  Kohler threw himself down. Shots ripped over him. He returned fire, just to let the bastards know he was carrying. He didn’t want to hit them. Not the SS, not his buddies, his confrères. They’d garrotte him, that’s what they’d do.

  As he got up to run, Mademoiselle Arcuri said breathlessly, ‘Now a right, and another and another. He must not go left no matter how much he desires it.’ One could feel the tension in her.

  Kohler started to make his way towards the front entrance along an aisle that seemed to lead him there, but the left… the left… this place. Should he not go left?

  St-Cyr shouted the orders and the Bavarian went right at the next doorway but Ackermann’s men were swift. Firing as they ran, they came to the doorway and turned to the right. Ah damn!

  ‘Now a left, Jean-Louis. A left!’

  St-Cyr yelled as never before. Still clinging to him, she said, ‘Now round the maze and into the woods. He must lead them away. He must give us time.’

  Ah, what was this?

  Kohler found his legs but so did the other two. No thoughts of shooting him now, only those of stopping him.

  Zigzagging among the topiary in his bare feet, he headed for the stone wall at the back. Too many cigarettes … too many late nights … Ah, Gott in Himmel, was he to die like this?

  The gargoyles frowned from atop the stone wall. Tearing his fingers on the rough stonework, tripping, falling flat and losing his gun, his precious gun, he dragged himself up and pitched through the opening.

  The other two followed, and the grounds soon fell to silence while the woods gave up an occasional yell.

  Satisfied, the chanteuse breathed in deeply, and when St-Cyr turned to face her, there was still the ghost of a momentary excitement in her eyes.

  ‘So, we make a kind of team, eh, Inspector? You and me, we fit pretty good after all.’

  He hated to spoil things. ‘Madame …’

  The excitement disappeared. ‘Yes … Yes, I know, Inspector. I’m a married woman. Me, I have not forgotten that you wish to meet my husband.’

  The wind sighed through the embrasures. As before, the central stairwell was surrounded by a landing off which four gaps gave out to embrasures. Heavily studded do
ors with ancient locks led to rooms. It was the sort of place they used to put erring daughters or sons who’d lose their heads.

  When they reached the top floor, she watched him as his eyes settled on each of the doors.

  Again he heard the sighing of the wind. To have no heat, to always be cold … Surely the husband …

  Stepping away from her, he went to look out over the maze to the woods beyond. Hopefully Hermann would lose them. They’d have to meet at the mill after dark. ‘Mademoiselle Arcuri …’

  Would he arrest her after all? ‘There you go again, Inspector. Mademoiselle this, and Mademoiselle that.’

  ‘Your husband, madame?’

  ‘Which room do you think he’s in?’ she asked. ‘Let’s see how sharp you are, Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Sûreté Nationale.’

  How bitter she was about it. ‘The key … we’ll need the key,’ he said.

  ‘The key,’ she echoed. ‘Me, I am sorry, Monsieur the Inspector, but I’ve forgotten to bring it.’

  Deliberately she’d made him feel stupid. ‘He’s not a prisoner, is he?’

  ‘Yes … Yes, in a manner of speaking he is.’

  The forest-green sweater, the bright red ribbon in her hair, the skirt and shoes made her appear innocent – the adventuress, perhaps, but a murderess …? Ah, Mon Dieu, it was so hard to tell.

  She knew he still had his doubts about her. It was to be of no use then, that bit of fun, that chance to forget things for a moment as his partner had escaped from the maze. Now this. A final confrontation. A time of decision for him, a last sad song for her.

  ‘The key’s hanging up there,’ she confessed, and reaching beyond him into shadow, took the thing down. ‘It opens all of them, but he’s in the room directly across from us.’

  As he took the ancient key from her, St-Cyr said humbly, ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Just open the door, will you? We really don’t have all that much time.’

  She was angry with him – disheartened, perhaps, but definitely disappointed.

  The lock was stiff, the door even stiffer and heavy … so heavy. ‘Our ancestors …’ he began, heaving on the thing.

  The room was empty except for a plain oak casket that lay in the centre of the floor where it could catch a bit of sun from the only window. She remained on the landing, framed by the ancient doorway, caught as it were by what he’d found.

  ‘When … When did he die?’ Damn, he felt a fool! That voice on the telephone to Yvette. He’d been so sure …

  ‘In August, the twenty-third to be precise. Two days before his thirty-eighth birthday. We hid him, yes – since the defeat of 1940 – but he didn’t run away from the fighting, if that’s what you’re thinking. Two of his men stole a staff car and drove him half-way across France to be with his mother because, Inspector, when a man is in great pain all he can do is cry out for his mother.’

  Not his wife, not his lover. ‘Madame, please forgive me.’

  ‘Jérome found out. Hans Ackermann suspected – they leave no stones unturned, the SS and their Gestapo.’

  ‘Yet you helped my partner just now?’

  ‘Only because I had to. If Hans should find this, he’ll do exactly as you’ve said. Jeanne will be sent into forced labour and René Yvon-Paul to a reformatory. Me, I don’t care much about this place. Perhaps Hans secretly has it in mind to confiscate it. I wouldn’t really know. But I could not stand to see my son sent away.’

  ‘Did you murder Yvette? Please, I must have the truth.’

  ‘Would you send me to the guillotine if I told you that I had?’

  Dear God, must she make it so hard for him? ‘Yes … yes, though I would hate myself ever afterwards, I would have to do so.’

  ‘Even in a time of war? Yvette couldn’t be allowed to live, Inspector. You do understand? She knew far too much. Hans … Hans was getting too close. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think straight. The Resistance … those little black coffins, I …’

  At last she stepped into the room. The slender fingers sought the casket, she crouching to give it a last goodbye. ‘Jeanne bought this in le Mans, well out of the district. We squirrelled it away after dark. No questions. Only the doctor knew about Charles and he’d been sworn to silence – she’s very good at things like that. Have you noticed?’

  St-Cyr said nothing – so it was to be the silent treatment after all. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it, Inspector, if a Frenchman is alive or dead, so long as you’ve hidden him and the German authorities want him?’

  ‘Mademoiselle Arcuri…’

  There you go again. It’s Gabrielle. Not Natasha, never Natasha. Not any more.’

  ‘We have no time. They’ve caught my partner.’

  The stables were not far but when they got there, Hermann had already been tied by the wrists to the stall boards on either side of the central corridor. His feet were bleeding. One trouser leg was torn. There was a cut above the right eye. He’d lost his hat and had for company two of the Château Thériault’s more curious brood mares and one of Ackermann’s men.

  ‘Louis, it was a good try. Have you got a cigarette? This miserable bastard …’

  ‘No cigarettes are allowed,’ said the man in French, waving his Luger their way. The thing was mounted with a drum clip of thirty-two rounds. The look was anything but friendly. ‘Your revolver, Inspector. Please take it out and toss it over there.’

  If only Mademoiselle Arcuri was not so close to him. ‘Do it!’ said the man.

  Gingerly he fished the Lebel out of its holster.

  ‘Louis, they won’t harm you – not … not until it’s over for me.’

  There was a training whip, one of those long, rawhide things, leaning against a stall. The Arcuri woman took a step towards it …

  ‘Please don’t,’ said St-Cyr, not looking at her. ‘He would only kill you, madame.’

  The Lebel landed in the manure pile. Ah damn! ‘So, my friend,’ he said with a shrug, ‘what now, eh? No more reports, no more worries …’

  ‘We wait for the general. That’s what we do.’

  This one was not so tall as Hermann, but tough. Big in the shoulders, stiff and strong in the neck. About twenty-eight years of age. In all that chasing around he hadn’t lost his cap. The uniform was immaculate.

  ‘Your name?’ asked St-Cyr pleasantly. Perhaps five metres separated them. ‘You will allow us a cigarette, eh? For Mademoiselle Arcuri if not for myself?’

  ‘Klaus Jensen, from Hamburg. Sure, smoke if it helps, but not him.’ The Frenchman was up to something. ‘No tricks, eh? Just a cigarette. She can light it for you.’

  As Mademoiselle Arcuri slid a hand into his jacket pocket to find the case, they exchanged glances. ‘Have you a match, my friend?’ asked St-Cyr. ‘I seem to have run out.’

  Jensen set his lighter on the floor and nudged it towards the woman. A real looker, a general’s woman but then …

  The smile she gave was brief and grateful as she crouched to pick the thing up and flicked it into flame. Kerosene … was there any kerosene for the lanterns? she wondered.

  St-Cyr accepted the light, holding her hand to steady the flame. Again they exchanged glances. Perhaps no more than five minutes had passed. ‘You didn’t kill Yvette,’ he said quietly. ‘Forgive me if I gave you the impression that I thought you had.’

  ‘But…?’

  ‘Ah no, not here. Please.’ He shook his head.

  ‘But I did kill her. Me, I did it.’

  ‘No, madame, that is not possible, eh? But let us leave it for now.’

  ‘What was that you two said?’ demanded Jensen, waving the pistol. He’d shoot the Frenchman then the woman if he had to.

  St-Cyr filled his lungs. When the choking fit had passed, he said, ‘Merely that your French is excellent. Where did you learn it?’

  ‘At the Sorbonne, from ’36 to ’39. Among other things, that is!’ He grinned.

  Other things like organizing the Fifth Column and recruiting French students int
o the Nazi cause.

  ‘Me, I would have thought you one of us, isn’t that so, Hermann? A real Frenchman of the upper crust.’

  Just what the hell was Louis on about now? ‘Yes … yes, he speaks Frog like a well-heeled native, Louis. So what?’

  ‘So nothing, my friend. I just thought it curious.’

  *

  The mourners had departed. The waiters had disappeared. The abbot still sat at the far end of the salon with the countess on his right. The parish priest had taken his leave, discreetly perhaps, as had the parents Noel in whose places a stern-faced Brother Michael sat beside Brother Sebastian. Lost in prayers that one, and mumbling them over and over again without the help of his rosary. Ah yes.

  René Yvon-Paul came towards his mother and when they met, she brushed a hand fondly over the boy’s hair, then stooped to kiss his cheek.

  The boy gave her a doubtful look but sat between her and the countess in whose dark eyes one could detect nothing but a cold watchfulness.

  Ackermann told his man to wait just inside the main entrance to the salon and to let no one enter or leave. ‘We shall give him his moment, and then we shall deal with the two of them.’

  So much for the pleasantries.

  ‘Countess, Reverend Father, a glass of wine, I think, to slake the thirst, said St-Cyr.

  She looked to Ackermann and back to him. ‘Yes … Yes, of course. Hans, would it be all right?’

  ‘A little of your demi-sec for me,’ enthused St-Cyr. ‘The small taste I had was superb.’

  ‘René, would you …,’ began the countess. Ackermann nodded curtly.

  As the boy left by a side door, St-Cyr stuffed his hands into the bulging pockets of his jacket. ‘May I, General?’ He indicated the pipe. ‘An old favourite Hermann has been good enough to supply with fuel.’

  ‘Did he steal the tobacco or break someone’s hand in the process of persuasion?’ asked Ackermann.

  Hermann must have quite a reputation at number 72 the avenue Foch. ‘He bought it, I think, General. Hermann’s a man of mystery, though, and one can’t always tell what he’ll do even in the tightest of situations.’