Boots would soon squeak in the twenty degrees of frost. The open-toed, wooden-heeled shoes of the salesgirls, usherettes and secretaries would click-clack harshly, though most had long since lost interest in how they looked or in trying to find a husband, what with so many of the young men either dead or locked up in POW camps in the Reich.
After more than two and a half years of Occupation, nearly three and a half of war, hunger was on everyone’s mind unless some fiddle had been worked, or one slept with the enemy or had one living in the house. The system of rationing had never worked and had been open to so much abuse, most existed on less than 1500 calories a day.
Yet they had to get up at 4 a.m. the old time, six days a week.
He turned his back on the city. He went into the stone-cold house, saying softly, ‘Marianne, it’s me …’ only to stop himself, to remember that she was not asleep upstairs but dead. ‘Ah merde, I’ve got to watch myself,’ he said. Fortunately there were still a few splintered boards left from the explosion that had killed her and their little son. Hermann had had the Todt Organization repair the damage. With pages torn from About’s The King of the Mountains – a tragedy to destroy it – he lit a fire in the kitchen stove.
And searching the barren cupboards found, at last, one forgotten cube of bouillon.
‘Things like this build character – isn’t that what you always said, maman?’ he cried out for it was her house. It had always been hers even after she had passed away, and hadn’t that been part of the trouble with the first wife and with the second?
‘No. It was the long absences. The work. The profession, and I was determined to succeed, but if one does not climb the ladder, one soon slides down it.’
Flames lit up the room and, cursing himself, he ran to draw the black-out curtains Madame Courbet across the street had thoughtfully left open to brighten the place while cleaning it.
The Gypsy had done the Ritz robbery between 8.15 and 8.47 p.m., Monday, but the flic who had found Cartier’s front door open had not done so until today at 0127 hours. Lots of time, then, for the Gypsy to have been as thorough as possible, yet he had left things behind, had definitely not taken all he could have.
‘And that’, breathed St-Cyr, ‘is a puzzle, unless he was trying to tell us something.’
The bouillon cube was old and so dry he had to remove a shoe to smash it with the heel, only to worry about damaging the footwear. Scraping the crumbs into a hand with the blade of a dinner knife, he fed them to the pot from the surface of whose cup of water rose the first tendrils of steam.
More wood was added to the stove, and from his pockets, guiltily now, the half-dozen lumps of coal Hermann had pilfered unseen from the cellars of the building that housed Cartier’s.
Hermann had kept six for himself – he was like that. He wouldn’t take what was his right as one of the Occupier, the Citroën excepted, and certain of his meals. He would go without but ‘borrow’ from those who had.
Idly St-Cyr wondered if his partner had picked up a little bauble or two for Giselle and Oona. Underwear, yes – silk stockings if they could be spared and the victim found in such a state only one pair would be necessary for the funeral if the coffin was to be left open. If.
‘But why Cartier’s?’ he asked himself, removing his overcoat at last but keeping the scarf tightly wrapped around his throat, the chest covered thickly. The flu … one never relaxed one’s vigilance for it was serious. So many had died of it last winter.
Cartier’s was close to the Ritz but Van Cleef and Arpels was on place Vendôme and much closer, other world-famous jewellers too, yet the Gypsy had settled on that one.
He had left the cigarette case for them to find – St-Cyr was certain of this but as yet had no proof. ‘Tshaya,’ he said, and blowing on the cup of bouillon, ‘Vadni ratsa.’
Kohler heard the telephone ringing its heart out in the hall downstairs. The sound rose up the stairwell floor by Christly floor until, tearing himself out of bed, he ran to stop it. Down, down the stairs, he pitching through the darkness rather than have Madame Clicquot bitch at him any more. The rent, the lack of coal – ‘Why will you not see that we receive our proper share?’ Et cetera.
They collided. The candle stub flew out of her hands; the stench of garlic, onions and positively no bathing was ripe with fortitude. ‘Monsieur …’ she exhaled.
‘Madame, forgive me. Allô … Allô … Operator, put the bastard on. Gestapo … yes, I’m Gestapo, eh? so don’t take offence and hang up.’
‘Louis … Louis, what the hell is it this time?’
A moment was taken. And then, ‘Cartier’s, Hermann. The Opéra, June of 1910 and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The Schéhérazade. The Thousand and One Nights, The Arabian Nights.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I was there with my parents. It was magnificent!’
‘I’m still listening.’
‘Bakst put such colours into the décor. Nijinsky was the black slave.’
‘Continue.’
‘Louis Cartier, the grandson, was so impressed he revolutionized Cartier’s style and the way we see gems and semiprecious stones. He and his assistant, Charles Jacqueau, began to create what were then very daring combinations of onyx, jet or pearl and diamond, with malachite, jade and amethyst or lapis lazuli. That’s why he hit Cartier’s.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘The Club Schéhérazade, idiot! Tshaya, Hermann. Nana Thélème. She was wearing a dress with stag-horn buttons and a belt of goid links. Those are gypsy things. Their most powerful talismans are not man-made but natural. A polished bit of antler, a beach pebble bearing its tiny fossil …’
‘A plaque of amber with its entrapped fly, eh? Hey, mon vieux, I’m going back to bed. Your French logic is just too much for me!’
Tshaya was Nana Thélème? Ah! Louis was crazy. Too tired, too overwrought.
The flat was freezing. Giselle wore three sweaters and two pairs of woollen trousers, kneesocks, gloves and a toque. Oona also.
There was no room for him in the bed – there hadn’t been when he had arrived home. Ah! the three of them didn’t share the same bed. Those two would never have put up with anything like that! not even in this weather …
Oona’s bed was freezing and when he had settled back into it, he knew Giselle would accuse him of favouritism and that she wouldn’t listen to his protests even though her bed had been fully occupied.
He was just drifting off to the tolling of the Bibliothèque Nationale’s five o’clock bell some, distance across the river, when Oona slid in beside him to fan the flames of jealousy into a little fire of their own.
‘Kiss me,’ she said. ‘Hold me. I’m worried.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘Another seven and a half months? Perhaps. It all depends on Giselle, doesn’t it?’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Only that she’s the one who’s expecting, not me. You were thoughtless, Hermann. You got carried away and did not take precautions.’
‘It’s the war. It’s those lousy capotes anglaises they hand out. Someone’s been sabotaging them.’
The condoms. Long ago in Paris the Englishmen had worn rubber coats with hoods, and the French had given the name to that most necessary of garments.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ she murmured, snuggling closely for comfort, ‘but, then, perhaps not.’
When she awakened, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in his greatcoat, gloves and fedora, smoking a cigarette, and she knew he’d been like that ever since. Unfortunately he had had to be told things and, yes, unfortunately she had had to be the one to have to tell him. ‘A woman notices such things, Hermann. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Hey, you were right to tell me. Giselle wouldn’t have.’
11 rue des Saussaies was bleak at any hour but especially so in winter as the sun struggled to rise. Its grey stone walls and iron grilles were webbed with frost. The courtyard’s snow had
been packed hard by the traffic of the previous night.
Gestapo plain clothes came and went in a hurry always. A panier à salade languished, the salad shaker,* having emptied its guts at 3 or 4 a.m. A wireless tracking van drew in to report after a hard night’s trying to get a fix on a clandestine transceiver. Had they zeroed in on someone? wondered Kohler. Those boys didn’t work out of here, so their presence had to mean something was up.
Black Citroëns were in a row with black Renaults, Fords and Peugeots, black everything and hated, too, because like the trench coats and the briefcases of the plain clothes, they were a symbol of what this place had become.
Once the Headquarters of the Sûreté Nationale, it was now that of the Gestapo in France yet had retained all of the attributes and successes of the former, particularly a records section which was second to none, even to that of the Sicherheitsdienst in Berlin.
Kohler coughed. Louis hunched his shoulders and pulled up his overcoat collar before saying, ‘To business then, and stop worrying, eh? Everyone knows that without sufficient food, the female body loses its ability to menstruate. Treat Giselle to some good black-market meals. Include Oona. Stop being so pious. See if it doesn’t help. Load the larder. Use your privileges and your head, and suit-up before you have another go at either of them!’
Father Time and no patience, no sympathy at all! Louis had always gone on about Giselle’s returning to her former profession, to the house of Madame Chabot on the rue Danton, which was just around the corner from the flat and a constant reminder. ‘Oona’s positive.’
Ah, pour I ‘amour de Dieul what was one to do? Drag along this worried papa-to-be who was old enough to have been the girl’s grandfather? ‘I can’t have you distracted, Hermann. Not with the Gypsy. Besides, Pharand wants to see me. He’s insisting.’
‘Then quit fussing. Hey, I’ll take care of that little Croix de feu for you. Just watch my dust!’
The Croix de feu were one of the notorious right-wing, fascist groups from the thirties. Kohler went in first, Louis followed, but when they reached the Major’s office, the Bavarian left his partner out of sight in the corridor and shot in to ask, ‘Have you seen St-Cyr?’
The secretary spilled her boss’s coffee. A Chinese porcelain vase went over – a priceless thing – and she cried out in dismay even as he righted it only to hear Pharand hiss from his inner sanctum, ‘Not in, eh? and at 0900 hours! It’s les hirondelles for him.’
The swallows … the bicycle patrols in their capes and képis. ‘Why not the pussy patrol?’ sang out Kohler.
Louis’s boss came to stand in the doorway. ‘Enough of your shit, Hauptsturmführer. Where is he?’
That’s what I’m asking.’
The carefully trimmed black pencil of the Major’s moustache twitched. The rounded cheeks were sallow and unhealthy in winter, though they’d always been like that. The short black hair of this little fascist was glued in place with scented pomade and splashes of joli Soir, the dark brown eyes were alive with barely controlled fury.
‘He was to see me first. A report is forthcoming. Orders are orders, is that not right, Hauptsturmführer? The Ritz, then Cartier’s and now … why now … Ah! you did not know of it, did you?’
The bastard …
The pudgy hands came together as if squeezing the joy out of his little triumph. At fifty-eight years of age, Osias Pharand still had his friends in the upper echelons and hadn’t wasted them. Readily he had moved out of his plush office – had given it up to Gestapo Boemelburg and had willingly shifted his ass down the hall. Taken his lumps because he had known the French would run things anyway, and had cluttered the den with the trivia of his years in Indochina and other places.
A stint as director of the Sûreté’s Deuxième bureau des nomades had been a big step to the top – you’d think he’d have come to appreciate the gypsies for having provided so many rungs in the ladder but no, he hated them as much as he hated the Jews. But for the Resistance, for the so-called ‘terrorists’, he reserved an unequalled passion.
‘Bring St-Cyr in here now,’ he said.
The air was full of trouble but Kohler couldn’t resist taunting him. ‘He’s probably with Boemelburg already. The IKPK, eh? Hey, the two of them worked together before the war. They’re old friends, or had you forgotten?’
‘Never! Not for a moment. It’s the only thing that saves him but with this …’ Pharand toyed with the fish. ‘With this, I do not think even that will be enough. The matter demands special treatment – Sonderbehandlung, or had you forgotten?’
‘Maître Pharand …’
‘Ah! I’ve got your attention at last. Another robbery. A big one, eh? Now piss off. Go on. Get out. Leave this sort of work to those best suited for it. Let me live with my secrets until they become your partner’s demise. Perhaps then he will understand that it is to me that he owes his loyalty and his job. I could have helped you both.’
Boemelburg was not happy. ‘The Gare Saint-Lazare. The ticket-agent’s office. That idiot of an agent-directeur didn’t bother to deposit last week’s receipts or those of the week before. Apparently he does it only once a month.’
‘But … but there are always those on duty, Walter? A station so huge … Traffic never stops …’ insisted St-Cyr.
A stumpy forefinger was raised. ‘Passenger traffic does stop, as you well know. Those arriving must wait until the curfew is over; those departing must purchase their tickets before it begins. The wickets are then closed, the receipts tallied and put away in the safe, and the office locked.’
‘How much did he get?’ asked Kohler, dismayed by the speed with which the Gypsy was working.
The rheum-filled Nordic eyes seemed saddened, as if in assessing them, Boemelburg was cognizant of certain truths. A flagrant patriotism in St-Cyr, questionable friends, a rebellious nature in Kohler, among other things. ‘682,000 francs in 100 and 500 franc notes. He left the rest.’
It had to be asked. ‘What else, Walter? I’ve seen it before,’ said St-Cyr. ‘You always drop your eyes when you want to tell us something but are uncertain of how to put it.’
A big man, with the blunt head and all-but-shaven, bristly iron grey hair of a Polizeikommissar of long experience, Boemelburg had seen nearly everything the criminal milieu could offer but he was also Head of SIPO-Section IV, the Gestapo in France.
‘Three Lebels, the 1873 Modéle d’ordonnance, and one hundred and twenty rounds, the black-powder cartridges. Forgotten during the Defeat and subsequent ordinance to turn in all firearms. Overlooked in the hunt for delinquent guns. Left in their boxes and brand-new, Louis. Good Gott im Himmel, the imbeciles!’
‘From 1873?’ managed the Sûreté. ‘But that is …’
‘Yes, yes, only two years after the Franco-Prussian War. Look, I don’t know how long they were in that safe. No one does. Each agent-directeur simply thought it best to leave those damned boxes alone.’
‘It’s serious,’ said Kohler lamely.
‘Are the Resistance involved in this matter?’ shouted the Chief.
Ah no … thought St-Cyr, dismayed at the sudden turn. Counter-terrorism, subversion, tracking down Jews, gypsies and all others of the Reich’s so-called undesirables were Walter’s responsibility, not just combating common crime. But then, too, in one of those paradoxes of the war, he ran gangs of known criminals who did the Gestapo’s bidding when they, themselves, wanted to remain at arm’s length.
A cop, and now a thug too, he unfortunately knew the city well, having worked here in his youth as a heating and ventilating engineer. He spoke French as good as any Parisian, even to the argot of Montmartre.
That grim, grey look passed over them. ‘I’m warning you. I want no trouble with this. Berlin are adamant. The Gypsy is to be apprehended at all costs. Taken alive if possible – there are things we need to know from him – but dead will do. That’s what they want and I must insist on it.’
‘And Herr Engelmann … why is he here?’ asked Kohler.
‘Then it didn’t stop functioning at the onslaught of hostilities. Heydrich kept it going?’ asked Louis.
‘As the Gruppenführer knew he should have. Herr Engelmann is not just with their robberies division. He holds a cross-appointment with the Berlin Kripo. In the course of his duties in ‘38, and then in ‘40 and ‘41, he went to Oslo several times to interview our friend, and has come to know him intimately, if anyone can ever do so.’
‘Then why is he being so difficult? Why doesn’t he take us fully into his confidence?’ asked Kohler.
Security allowed only so much to be said. ‘That is precisely what I have asked him to do. Full co-operation. A concerted effort to bring this safe-cracker in and quickly before he does us all an injury from which we cannot recover.’
Boemelburg was clearly worried. Leaning forward, he hurriedly shoved things out of the way, and lowered his voice. ‘Whose agenda is he following? What are his next targets? Where will he hole up and exactly who is helping him?’
Nana Thélème or someone else?
The set of fingerprints was very clear, the head-and-shoulders photographs sharp, but to St-Cyr the file card – the top in a bundle of perhaps thirty – was like one of those from the past. It evoked memories of Vienna and the IKPK and worries about the distinct possibility of another high-level assassination, the then impending visit of King George VI to France in July of 1938. Boemelburg and he had worked together on it, a last occasion before the war.
The IKPK had sent such cards to all its member countries, requesting whatever they had on a certain criminal or type of crime. These cards were then stored in rotatable drum-cabinets and a detective such as Boemelburg or himself, or Engelmann, could in a few moments collate data from cities in France with that from Britain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Italy, Greece and, at last count in 1938, some twenty-eight other countries around the world.
Gypsy Page 5