‘Afraid of what Weber and the boys from Berlin might do, was he, this Colonel Kessler?’
Kohler had earned that gash down his face from the SS during a murder investigation near Vouvray in December, and understood the whip better than most yet had still chosen to remain defiant of authority. ‘The Untersturmführer is in charge of security. Colonel Kessler should by rights have left the entire matter in his capable hands.’
A second lieutenant in the SS and wouldn’t you know it! ‘Your predecessor, Colonel. . We understand that he availed himself of Madame Chevreul’s séances.’
‘You want them stopped?’
Must this one be suspicious of everything? ‘Not yet. Better to let them continue.’
Jundt tapped that Wehrmacht nose of his with a cautioning forefinger. ‘But you think they’re involved. I can tell.’
‘We just need a little time to sort things out, that’s all.’
Perhaps some reason for Kessler’s having attended the séances should be given. ‘Colonel Kessler’s wife of thirty-seven years was killed during the bombing of last September. The house was unfortunately flattened.’
And houses these days were important, considering what the RAF were doing at night and the USAF during the day, but best not to mention that, either. ‘Anything else?’
‘The Kesslers’ little maid, Kohler. A girl the couple had taken an interest in was also killed. I gather he was very close to both of them.’
And if that wasn’t a hint, what was? ‘Did the medium get through to them?’
Did they talk to each other from beyond the clouds? Such persistence could only mean Kohler thought he was on to something juicy. ‘Ach, I know nothing of such things. Colonel Kessler must have held this Chevreul woman of yours in high regard, for he specifically asked that if you thought it best, she be allowed to continue her valuable work. “It keeps them happy,” he said.’
And so much for who was going to be held responsible for letting the séances and all the rest of it continue but. . ‘Untersturmführer Weber told you this, did he?’
‘That is correct, since the outgoing Kommandant was no longer present to do so himself.’
‘Séances night after night?’
‘Sometimes two sessions if the sign of the Zodiac is in conjunction with atmospheric conditions, but no more than ten to fifteen in attendance at any one time. Otherwise, the spirits might become distracted.’
‘And ten times fifty American dollars. . ’
‘Profitable perhaps, but ach, there are others of them who do it. The circle, the holding of hands with the eyes closed and thoughts concentrated, the table that tilts when the fingertips are pressed to it as the questions are asked by the medium who strives to make contact with the deceased. The crystal ball, as well, and the Ouija board, the palm readings too, and tea leaves-they get tea in those parcels of theirs, Kohler. Tea when we have none!’
And so much for Jundt’s not knowing a damn thing about the spiritualistic goings-on around the camp. ‘But these other mediums aren’t as good as Madame Chevreul?’
‘I believe his very words were, “She is the only one who can do it.”’
According to Untersturmführer Weber. ‘Had the Colonel tried others?’
‘Several, I gather. Weber will know.’
‘And the name of the Colonel’s interpreter? Just for the record.’
Did Kohler already suspect there was a killer amongst those at that last Saturday evening’s séance? ‘Colonel Kessler spoke English, which he was perfecting, and perfect French. That was why he was chosen for this position.’
‘Then tell me, why was he recalled?’
Certainly Weber had let Berlin know how things were, Jundt felt, but the recall had come with such short notice that one had to wonder. Perhaps it would be best, though, to offer some other reason so as to distance oneself further. ‘The languages, mein Lieber. With so many Allied prisoners of war to be interrogated, the High Command have had to make choices. Now, is there anything else?’
The pork was even colder. ‘Just one thing, Colonel. Why on earth was that poor unfortunate girl’s body left at the bottom of that elevator shaft? Surely someone should have-’
‘Removed her? Is this what you mean?’
‘You know it is.’
‘Kohler, Kohler,’ he muttered, shaking his head in dismay at such insubordination. ‘Colonel Kessler had ordered that she not be touched until the two detectives from Paris had examined her. Need I remind you that you were to have been here late last Sunday or on Monday? An eight-hour trip becomes a delay of six days? The Untersturmführer had to have guards posted on every floor of that verdammt hotel to keep those bitches from trying to see her and destroying what might well have been valuable evidence. One can’t see her, by the way. Not from above. I made certain of that. The elevator shaft is far too dark.’
‘Did any of the doctors get to her?’
‘The Scotsman was awakened by one of those women who wore dark horn-rimmed glasses. A Sister Jane then asked that a priest be summoned and the last rites given.’
‘And were they?’
Another cigarette would be best, the offer of one expected but withheld. ‘The Untersturmführer, as was correct, told her that, like everyone else, God would have to wait for you. That third-storey gate should simply not have been open. When I first arrived here four days ago, the Untersturmführer and I made a thorough examination of every facet of the camp. I tell you Kohler, that padlock was on and secure last Saturday at seventeen hundred hours, as was its chain.’
Yet he’d not been here to see it himself. ‘And its key, Colonel, where might that have been kept?’
‘You think it was stolen, do you?’
‘I’m just asking.’
‘Then understand that it is and was exactly where it ought to have been-right with the others on the wall behind the Untersturmführer’s desk. As head of security, is that not where such keys should be kept?’
‘Only to then have another one borrowed, Colonel?’
‘Ach, what is this?’
‘The stable.’
‘You and Weber had best go over things in the morning. Breakfast is at 0600 hours.’
Berlin time, which, in winter, included an hour of daylight saving.
They were coal-black and there were at least twenty of them in the cellar under a distant forty-watt bulb. Some were still eating, others already in bed, the bunks in tiers against the far wall, but what one most noticed, thought Kohler, was how trapped they looked yet grins flashed big white teeth and whites of eyes that quickly darted away from him to politely seek something else.
Les vaches-‘the cops’-was written in every one of those grins, of course, but never mentioned. Instead, Louis sat as one in a circle of eight, and the feeling was that the centuries of colonial rule and two European wars these boys and their fathers had never wanted to join, had been set aside so as to return to their roots.
‘Ah, bon, Hermann. Salaam aleikum. That’s peace be with you.’
‘Aleikum asalaam,’ came the reply. And peace be with you, and then, wonder of wonders, Hermann shook hands with each of them, betraying a knowledge he’d not yet let his partner know of, and asked how things were with each, their answers being, Fine, and how are things with you?
A space was made on the carpeted floor of the circle. Rice, not seen anywhere in years, was in one tin bowl, nice and fluffy and piping hot; a paste in another, a sauce of what looked to be and smelled like mashed sardines, corned beef, potatoes, sow thistle, and kale with broken crackers, walnut pieces, chestnuts, and dried prunes they’d got from God knows where, the whole blended with the liquid remains of the Kommandant’s soup as a reminder.
‘And Libby’s beans, Hermann. Two tins. It’s curious, isn’t it, since these boys are no longer receiving their Red Cross parcels.’
The rice was taken with the right of hands that had first been washed. It was then rolled into a tight little ball and the fingers of the right
hand then transferred to the sauce, which was scooped out as it was added.
Then one sat back and ate slowly, enjoying the meal and the company. Kohler couldn’t help but recall those early days of September and October 1940 with Louis guiding him along the muddy roads in the suburb of Saint-Denis to the north of Paris. A little field trip for this Kripo to get to know the city better. Filth, no sewers or running water, ramshackle huts, and kids-kids everywhere-smoke, too, from the ash and slag heaps as well as from the stovepipes.
Asnières had been no better, nor Villejuif and Vitry-sur-Seine to the south of the city. Fully sixty percent of all common crime in the Département de la Seine had been laid at the feet of men like these, Louis had said, and had gone on to add, “Yet in the last half of 1917 who was it who showed the rest of us they still had the stamina and will to fight?”
And having all but come through a winter like no other but this one.
‘Sergeant Senghor here holds the Croix de Guerre with two palms, Hermann, but doesn’t wear its rosette.’
Since the guards and their officers would get upset, and he was needed by the others.
‘He was just telling me how they came by the tinned beans and the rice.’
That one’s grin grew even bigger, yet his gaze passed momentarily over this Kripo to settle on the meal.
‘It’s a slinging match of the good God, Boss,’ said Senghor.
The patois was something else again, thought Kohler, but unlike the French of the middle and upper classes-somewhat easier for a foreigner like him to understand. ‘A little barter and on the quiet, eh?’
Had this one really been a prisoner of war as the sûreté had said? wondered Senghor. If so, it could only mean trouble, but had it been said as a warning and bargaining chip?
‘The guards do it,’ said one of the others. Bamba Duclos, thought Senghor.
‘Every man for himself, Boss,’ said another. Blaise Guéye for sure. ‘We defend our beefsteak.’
We’re only standing up for our rights. ‘And you have a system just like everyone else, eh?’ asked Kohler.
‘Are not all circumstances to be beaten, Boss, by those over which they form a lid?’ replied Senghor.
And no fool. ‘Did any of you agree to meet with Caroline Lacy at the Chalet des nes?’
‘Hermann, go easy. The negotiations are at a delicate stage.’
Still there was that grin, the teeth really very white and big.
‘No, Boss. None of us talked to that girl. Les Américaines. . ’
‘They call us lazy niggers,’ said one of the others, also with a grin.
‘Even though you cut and haul the firewood and do all the other heavy chores?’ continued Hermann, bent on unwittingly laying to waste all that had been gained.
‘Ah, oui, oui, Boss,’ said Senghor, ‘but not all of those girls are like that. Only some. The mademoiselle Lacy was young and pretty, and for her sake as well as for our own, none of us would have spoken to her.’
‘When others were nearby, eh?’
‘Hermann. . ’
‘Louis, leave it. Let him answer.’
And spoken like one of the Occupiers: ‘For fear of reprisals, Boss. Herr Weber is a tough, hard person.’
‘Who remembers well the occupation of the Rhineland, Hermann.’
In 1919, when the Allies moved into the area, France, thinking it best, had sent the Tirailleurs sénégalais and other coloureds as their contingent, thus spawning hatred from the occupied Rhinelanders then and retribution now.
‘The usual distressful stories of rape, Hermann. Herr Weber had a sister who was found amongst some ruins. Her clothes had been torn, her neck broken.’
‘Half our number are out in the forests, Boss, cutting and hauling firewood and logs for lumber,’ said Senghor. ‘Half are here, and every two weeks we change. Those that are left come home and those that sometimes don’t must wait for spring until the ground becomes unfrozen.’
‘Hermann, some of the Americans are fond of calling them “fresh.” Herr Weber knows this and waits for it.’
‘Even though some will wiggle their breasts and bottoms at us, Boss, and try to play us up in other ways, are we not men?’ asked Senghor, still with that grin of his.
‘And the British?’ asked Hermann, wanting to air all the linen.
‘What do you think, Boss?’
‘That they’re far more friendly.’
‘Since many of them come from slums like us?’
‘And like a bit of fun?’
This Gestapo wasn’t going to be easy, thought Senghor, his collaborator of a partner no pushover either. ‘They love to haggle, and always it is best that they think they’re getting the better of us, so we let them.’
A man of truth, was it? ‘And Madame Monnier?’
Hermann still wasn’t going to leave it.
‘The juju lady’s lead henchwoman. With her we must be very careful, Boss, so if we can, we do as asked and get her whatever she wants.’
‘Chocolate, Hermann. She has a sweet tooth.’
‘The juju lady or Madame Monnier?’
‘Both.’
‘Extra firewood,’ said someone, reaching for more sauce.
‘Wallpaper,’ offered another, thinking to help his sergeant.
‘Paper, Corporal Rivette, to light their stoves and cooking fires.’
‘Ah, oui, oui, mon sergent. For the fires.’
And for a little something else? wondered Kohler. And where, please, would they be getting it when the rest of the nation couldn’t? ‘Those golf balls,’ he said, pointing to a string bag that held a good hundred and far too many for one game unless an absolutely lousy golfer.
One had best heave a sigh. ‘The former Kommandant, Hermann. One or another would caddy for him.’
Was it safer ground, wondered Senghor, or was it more likely that one would never know with these two until it was too late? ‘As many days as possible in summer and autumn, Boss. In the spring, too, once the rains had stopped and the ground had dried a little, but he wasn’t like the new one. If he had a good day on the course, we were always given a little something.’
‘Colonel Kessler tended to spend a lot of time in the rough, Hermann, so they always kept themselves prepared.’
And don’t you dare ask where the golf balls came from!
Coffee, made from wild rose petals gathered in summer and dried before roasting, fortunately intervened and was passed round to be sweetened with Borden’s condensed milk courtesy of a Canadian Red Cross parcel.
‘The Americans distribute all parcels for the Western Allies, Hermann, except for those of the British.’
The things one had to learn. ‘Are there Canadians here?’
‘Australians, too, and others from the Dominions.’
‘But only a few of them, Boss,’ said Senghor. ‘Mostly the British internees are British but married to Frenchmen, the Frenchwomen in the Grand married to Britishers or widowed, but then there are also the British-British, like the English girls.’
As chorus girls were known in France, since they had invariably come from Britain.
‘There is also bishap, if you would prefer it, Inspector,’ said Louis. ‘A tisane of hibiscus leaves, a favourite from the homeland some of them left a good many years ago, but a local source.’
‘Brother Étienne again?’
‘But of course.’
Woodbines, Players, Chesterfields, Pall Malls, and Camels circulated. Having none to offer and having shared the meal, Hermann hauled out the partnership’s bankroll and, peeling off not one but two one-thousand-franc bills, added a further five hundred!
‘Louis would have left you a paltry fifty, if that,’ said the banker.
To all things from the Reich come all things good, was that it? ‘You’re very free with our money, Inspector.’
‘Consider it a down payment. The sergeant understands that we need their help but aren’t about to run to Weber or the Kommandant about anything incident
al we might discover, since none of these boys would have killed either of those girls. You can see it as well as I can, so it’s best we ask for their help.’
‘And is that an order, Herr Hauptmann und Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter?’
‘Jawohl. Now, let’s pack up and get some sleep. We’ve an early morning ahead.’
3
Vittel and its environs were pitch-dark at 2122 hours, their voices overly loud, or so it seemed.
‘How could you, Hermann? Am I to call you “Boss” from now on? When a chief inspector is conducting an interview, his subordinate does not, I repeat not, start in as if “fresh.”’
‘I think they heard you, Louis, even though I had them convinced I really was your boss. Now, tell me what I need to know. How many of those boys knew of you?’
From the old days, those of sûreté and flic raids that had smashed doors, windows, and walls to grab the running and apply the truncheon both before and after the bracelets.
‘I seldom took part in such things. I was away from Paris a lot.’
Hence the loss of the first wife who had run off with a door-to-door salesman or truck driver to marry a railway worker from Orléans.
‘I stood back and observed, Hermann. It’s what a detective does best.’
And no mention yet of the sénégalais dockworkers in places like Marseille and Nice. ‘Oh for sure, but did any of them remember you?’
‘One, perhaps two. Ah, mon Dieu, the Santé and Fresnes prisons were second homes to them. The murder of a disobedient wife who was cleaning maid to the Marquise de Montreuil yet her secret lover; the robbery of the Crédit industriel et commercial at 66 rue de la Victoire that was so bungled, the manager, M. Olivet, who had opened the safe, was able to slam it shut and press the alarm button. If I hadn’t put them away for threatening to shoot him to death and giving him a heart attack, someone else would have.’
‘But are they apt to understand and forgive?’
‘Of course not.’
‘That sack of golf balls came from somewhere.’
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