by Andrew Wood
Marner saw the fear and realisation creeping into her face. “So at this moment the only person in this city that you can trust is me, and I trust no one, not even my own colleagues and countrymen. If we wait for the police and you go into their protective custody, then I don’t give a high probability of you being protected at all.”
Lemele pondered on this, looked at her feet, then back up at him and gave a brief nod.
“Okay, let’s move.” He motioned her towards the archway, but did not attempt this time to take her arm.
Chapter Twelve
They worked their way through the back streets towards République until they found a horse-drawn taxi to take them to Avenue Foch. On seeing the state of Lemele and Marner with their bruised faces, Marner’s clothes stained with blood and the right jacket sleeve unstitched from the shoulder with the lining gaping out, the driver was not inclined to accept them. Marner resolved the driver’s reluctance by thrusting his identity card into the man’s face and ordering him to take them to Foch.
On arrival there, Marner marched directly to his office with Lemele in tow, brushing past the confused guards and their request for identification from Lemele, ignoring the looks from other officers. Once inside his office he threw his uniform, returned earlier by his driver, from the spare chair onto the floor and bade Lemele to be seated. He made three rapid calls, one for a medical orderly, the second for water and sandwiches, the third to the guard room.
Amazingly, Boris was still at work at this hour and came into Marner’s office just as he was hanging up on the last call. “What the f. . . .” spluttered Boris in amazement at the sight of Marner and the condition that he was in, but managing to strangle his outburst on seeing Lemele sitting there. Boris alternated his astonished gaze from one to the other, each time taking in yet another bump, bruise, scratch or rent to clothing. Finally he settled for his usual approach: comedy. “Did you two have a falling out?”
When it became obvious that Marner, who stood staring out of the window trying to calm his mind, was not going to dignify Boris’s absurd question with a response, it was left to Lemele to reply. “No, I am Inspector Lemele of the French police. Herr Marner and I are cooperating on an investigation.”
“Well, whichever, I’d say that you came out of it better than Dieter. But what is that on your scalp?” he enquired as he leaned over to peer up close, more for theatrical effect than need. “It looks like a bullet wound!”
Lemele nodded.
“So who shot you?”
“Well, I guess you could say that he did,” responded Lemele, pointing sheepishly at Marner, who now turned around.
Boris doubled over with laughter, holding his sides, and it was a full minute before he was capable of wiping the tears from his cheeks. “Oh wow, oh my,” and he kept breaking into laughter every time he tried to form words. Marner stepped forward to cut in, but Boris straightened and calmed a little, shushing Marner’s protests with his hands so as to give himself a final chance to deliver his punch line. “I’d sure hate to be around when you two stop cooperating,” and with this he set to roaring with laughter again.
“Boris, what the f. . . .” Marner stopped, continued more slowly and calmly, “Boris, what the hell are you doing in the office this late anyway? If you have nothing to contribute to this situation, please...go away. Now!”
Boris managed to calm down and adopted a more serious, business-like attitude. “I’m waiting for you actually. We have to report to Odewald as soon as possible. He is in a really foul mood, even by his standards. He’s waiting in his office and insisting that he wants to see both of us, immediately that you arrive.”
Marner wondered what Odewald wanted. If it was to do with the incidents and the mounting body count from the last two days, why would Boris also have been summoned? They were not working on any common cases at the moment, so it couldn’t be that either. Boris could see Marner’s mind working and confirmed that he too had no idea of why they were being summoned. “Come on, let’s go,” said Boris, “You know that it is never a good idea to keep Odewald waiting, especially at the end of the day when he is impatient to go out on the town.”
At that moment two guards arrived, summoned by Marner’s call a few minutes earlier, both armed with machine guns. “You two,” barked Marner, trying for his best ‘fearsome senior officer’ voice, noting with satisfaction that they instantly snapped to attention and stared at a point above his head. “You will stand guard on this door and permit no one to enter or leave until I, and only I, return and relieve you. Deviate from my instructions in anyway and I will personally sign your transfer papers to the Russian front. Is that understood?” he finished with a roar and they both nodded furiously, staring all the harder at the ceiling.
Satisfied, Marner stomped out, followed closely by the chuckling Boris. “Good show Dieter, good show,” he chortled, to which Marner replied sotto voice that he could ‘go fuck himself’.
----
Odewald was disconcerted by Marner’s dishevelled appearance. “What on earth have you been doing Lieutenant?” he demanded. “And where is your uniform?”
“I’ve been working in plain clothes this afternoon sir, and I had a run in with a couple of types, although I’m pleased to state that I am fine and in better condition than they are. Sir.”
“Well, I don’t recall signing an authority for you to go undercover,” replied Odewald, flapping away Marner’s attempt to excuse this lapse. “Get yourself cleaned up and get back into your uniform immediately.”
Whilst Kripo generally wore civilian clothes within the German national borders, it was a standing order that all personnel working within occupied countries had to wear uniforms. This was a strict policy that had been introduced following incidents of undercover officers having been mistaken for partisans and shot by German soldiers.
Odewald settled himself behind his desk and theatrically arranged a file in the very centre of it. Marner and Boris knew that whatever was in there formed the object of Odewald’s displeasure, and that whatever it might be was now coming their way.
“So what do you have to report on your investigation into the murder of the Kriegsmarine officer, what’s his name, ah...”
“Schull, sir,” supplied Marner, “Captain Markus Schull.”
Marner gave a brief update; that he now believed that the murder had been staged to appear that it was simply a random killing and that the motive was possibly linked to Schull’s investigation here in Paris.
“But why go to all of this trouble, including murdering another innocent man, if that is what I understand that you are proposing?” asked Odewald, his voice heavy with disbelief.
“I can only presume that whoever is truly responsible wanted to give the matter an apparently neat and tidy ending, no further investigation required and, most importantly, no link to Schull’s investigation of the missing gold.” Marner was looking at Odewald, but he heard Boris’s intake of breath at this mention of gold.
“Well,” began Odewald, “It seems that you are not on the correct line of investigation. Sergeant Emsinger!” Boris jerked to attention again, having been distracted by this reference to gold. “Sergeant Emsinger, how are your investigations proceeding in the search for Pierre Loutrel?”
Boris gulped. “No success in finding him so far, sir. Either he is being hidden and protected, or he is dead. My informants really have no idea of which it is. Sir,” finished Boris lamely.
Now Odewald exploded, slamming both palms down onto the file in front of him, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing furiously. “Well I know where he is and I know what he is doing, and I don’t need your horde of rats and rodents masquerading as informants to help me!” he roared, spittle flying from his quivering mouth. “He is in Toulouse, you moron!”
Odewald paused in his tirade, enjoying watching Boris squirm and then continued, “Where he has murdered another German officer!” Odewald was almost levitating out of his chair in his fury, beads of sweat po
pping out on his shiny bald pate.
“What?!” gasped Boris and Marner in unison, turning for a moment to look at each other and then snapping back to eyes-front.
“Yes! Both of you are incompetent fools. We have a potential serial murderer of German officers, the key culprit is known and yet you don’t seem able to locate him!” he thundered. “So get yourselves to Toulouse and find and arrest Loutrel. Immediately!”
“But sir,” interjected Marner. “I understand that this new murder and Loutrel’s membership of the Carlingue would seem to link it to my investigation, but my hunch....”
“Hunch? I don’t have hunches, you imbecile; I have the bodies of German officers. Two of them, no less, and I am ordering you to go to Toulouse and arrest the murderer. Now get the fuck out!” Odewald thumped his desk again, eyes bulging alarmingly; his dislike for being argued with and his temper was legendary. Boris was at least enjoying the opportunity to carefully observe Odewald, to store up a few titbits of his mannerisms as future material for his impersonations.
Boris and Marner glanced at one another once more, saluted and exited Odewald’s office before his wrath could gain new heights. As they walked back to Marner’s office Boris reflected, “Well, it has certainly been a big day for the ‘F’ word, eh Dieter?”
Chapter Thirteen
On their way back through the building they stopped at the administration office that catered for the various travel, accommodation and security needs of the personnel. For their travel to Toulouse, going by plane was undoubtedly the fastest method, but not an option. Although Toulouse boasted two large airfields, the Luftwaffe had neither planes nor fuel to spare and no desire to use what they had. As the adjutant in the office explained, the enemy had enjoyed total domination of the air over France for several months. Now that the Allies had landed in Normandy, the skies were a complete no-go zone for German aeroplanes. “Quite simply my friends, anything that dares to go up has very poor chances of coming back down in one piece,” he informed them.
The adjutant was similarly despondent over possibilities for rail travel; the British and Americans had been incessantly attacking the trains, rails and bridges since the beginning of 1944. One third of the rolling stock had been disabled or destroyed, along with significant portions of the track network. Beginning two weeks previously, the Allies had doubled the intensity of their attacks, using their freedom of the air to destroy key rail bridges, junctions and marshalling points that could be used by the Germans to move men and materiel around. As they now understood today, this increased activity was intended to prevent the German army being able to relocate their forces from elsewhere in France to support their defences in Normandy. All of the rail bridges along the Seine between Paris and Rouen had been destroyed or badly damaged in the last twenty four hours, as well as seventy percent of the bridges south of Paris crossing the Loire valley to and from points further south. Add to this the localised and random impacts of the French Resistance in blowing up tracks and trains, and the situation was utter chaos. Up until May there had been a severe lack of functioning trains, but at least some of them moved. Since then, the rolling stock that remained functional was more readily available, but only because it was jammed and barely able to move due to the innumerable ruptures in rail system.
“So what do you suggest?” shouted Boris, trying to make himself audible above the noise of the other officer in the room, who was yelling into the telephone, apparently trying to use foul language, threats and sheer volume of his voice to coerce cooperation from whoever was on the other end of the line. “Because we’ve just come from Odewald’s office and he is not in a good mood.” Boris paused to let this sink into the adjutant’s head. “He wants us in Toulouse fast. As in the ‘yesterday’ kind of fast!”
“Okay, give me an hour and I will have something for you, although it’s too late to be setting off today because we are not running anything during the night hours. Departure tomorrow morning is the only option, and be warned that I will need you to be at the station very early, since things are going to be, how shall we put it, ‘flexible’. So you need to be there promptly and ready to jump on anything that is heading south.”
Boris crinkled his brow. “So what exactly is it that you ‘organise’? I could have figured out for myself that I need to go to the station early and get on the first train that is moving!”
“Ah yes, my friend. But do you have a travel permit? Do you have the contacts to get hotels arranged? That is what you need me for.”
Boris looked ready to unleash another outpouring of scorn, prompting Marner to step in, ignoring the looks of shock on the adjutant’s face over his state of dress. “Which reminds me, the French Police are working on this case with us, so we will need an additional travel permit for Inspector Lemele,” and he spelled the name for the benefit of the adjutant. “With of course an extra room at whatever luxurious hotel you are going to organise for us in Toulouse.”
The adjutant guffawed in genuine mirth. “Luxurious? With you firmly rooted at the bottom of Odewald’s shit-list, you’ll be lucky if you get a flea-infested dog kennel on a farm twenty kilometres outside of the town.”
“Make it a good hotel, Josef,” grumbled Boris, already heading for the door. “Or else sweet little Marie-Laure who you’re working so hard to crack will get to hear about your visit to the doctor last week for something to stop your wiener dripping.”
The adjutant laughed at Boris’s retreating back, but this time it was false and strained. He smiled and shrugged at Marner as if to say, ‘I’ll see what I can do’. Marner scowled at him and then turned to follow Boris.
----
Despite the link to the Carlingue, Marner saw no reason to believe that this new incident in Toulouse was related to his case and he felt that it was a waste of time as well as an unnecessary distraction. However, he had no choice but to go as commanded.
On reflection, the trip to Toulouse was not such a bad idea since he had no current leads of his own. He regretted that he had once again been heavy handed with Lemele’s attackers earlier. Added to which, he needed to get Lemele out of harm’s way for a while. They would take her with them to Toulouse, out of Paris and under the full time protection of him and Boris.
Back at his office, Marner found the ancient medical orderly waiting outside the door. He was allegedly a fully qualified doctor who had been removed from his front-line surgery posting due to abuse of the drugs at his disposal. No one knew where he lived in Paris or what he did in his off-duty time. The old medico explained to Marner that the guards had refused to let him in to tend to Lemele; they were taking his orders to let no one enter the office a bit too literally. She did have the sandwiches and water and coffee in the office with her, explaining that one of the guards had relieved the clerk of them outside the office and brought the food in. “But what if they had been poisoned, you dumb idiots!” roared Boris, eyes bulging and blazing into the faces of the guards, one of whom began to choke on the mouthful of sandwich that he was swallowing. Boris suddenly straightened up and roared with laughter, “Only joking, only joking, relax boys.”
Marner turned and shrugged at Lemele in apology.
Chapter Fourteen
The remainder of the evening was spent preparing for the journey to Toulouse. Whilst Boris returned alone to his hotel to collect what he needed, Marner and Lemele took a staff car with the two guards, first to Marner’s hotel and then to Lemele’s apartment.
She lived alone on the third floor of a high, blank-faced concrete monstrosity close to Gare Montparnasse. They stopped around the corner from the entrance to the building, Marner instructing Lemele to remain in the car with one of the guards whilst he took the other. They walked up and down the front of the street, corner to corner, to check for anyone watching the building and then ascended to the third floor. The guard was sent up in the creaking elevator, whilst Marner climbed the dank stairway.
Using the key that he had been given by Lemele they en
tered and made a brief search of the three tiny rooms of her apartment; it comprised a lounge with a kitchenette separated by a curtain, a bedroom and a bathroom. Satisfied, Marner sent the guard back down for Lemele, giving instructions that only one of them was to come back up with her; the other was to remain in the building lobby on the ground floor.
Whilst he waited he looked around the lounge, noting that it had nothing in it except the bare essentials of basic, cheap furniture. During the journey from his hotel he had asked how long she had lived here, trying to make small talk, to which she had replied that it had been two years. The only sign that anyone had tried to make it a home were the photos on the shelf above the fireplace. A mix of family photos showing mostly older people, together with two images of a young man, one in a casual suit that looked expensive, the other of the man on horse-back somewhere in the countryside. Brother, lover or husband? The horse was huge and muscled, no doubt expensive too.
When she entered the room she rapidly scanned it and then looked accusingly at him; it was plain to see on her face that she suspected that he had used the interval to search it. He smiled at her and continued standing by the window, which looked directly out onto the marshalling yards of Montparnasse station. He guessed that it must have been incredibly noisy here when the rail system was running correctly. Fortunately the Allies had not resorted to bombing targets such as stations in the city centre; despite some attacks on the Seine dockyards and fuel storage terminals, they were restricting their operations to outside of the suburbs. Otherwise this would be a dangerous as well as a noisy place to live.