Carnival (23 page)

A much needed pair of work gloves awaited further stitching, having been fashioned out of scraps of cloth. A bit of grey-green fabric—nothing more than a tunic's lapel in size—matched the shade of the uniforms of those the French had come to call
les haricots verts
, the green beans, the Wehrmacht's finest.

Newspapers had been sewn into a hood to give warmth—he and others had done the same in that other war. The smell of a smashed bottle of cheap scent rushed at him as he lifted a soggy wad of newspaper from the remains of that hood, dehydrated peas and carrot cubes now underfoot.

Caught among the rubbish, the fist-sized carving of a long-haired, voluptuous naked woman gazed fiercely up at him from her chariot. Armbands of beaten gold, a torque of the same and a quiver of javelins completed the attire, the one in her hand broken off during the search.

Rescuing the carving that the assistant machinist must have done, he cleaned it off with pages from the
Kölnische Zeitung
of Monday, 4 January 1943, only to hesitate, to pocket the carving and to quickly scan the columns. Kathe … Maria … Angela … ‘Karen is at the age where a girl desires children. She is 175 cm tall (5'9”), weighs 54.4 kgs (120 lbs.), has a good figure if just a little big in the bust, likes to dance and to party, to go to the cinema and take long walks …'
Ach
, hadn't he read this before? ‘Reads romance novels but finds them insufficient for her needs. Wishes to meet a man who is gentle and kind and older than herself so that a mature hand can give guidance to a sometimes frivolous nature. Preferably he will appreciate Herr Wagner's music as much as she does.
Der fliegende Holländer
perhaps.' The Flying Dutchman. ‘Apply Box 1043.'

Pages from the
Berliner Morgenpost
were here too, from the stuffing of that hood. Those of the
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
and
Tageblatt
but earlier issues, and then … Wednesday, 20 January 1943, the
Münchner Neueste Nachrichten
. ‘Beate is blonde, blue-eyed and lonely. At the age of 27, she finds herself still a virgin. Friends say she is too rambunctious, that she needs guidance and should seek someone much older. One who likes swimming, sunbathing and the superb
Deutsche Grammophon
recordings of
Das Rheingold
and
Die Walküre
. If you are that man, apply Box 1379 and include a snapshot, please.'

Dorsche hadn't seen this either.

From one of the wire-meshed windows there was a view of the root cellar's entrance, still closed—Louis could take forever talking to a corpse. There was also a view of the administrative block and all the way down it to a garage.

To his right, to the south and just beyond the outer perimeter, a goods train was backing along a siding, the slogan
RÄDER MUSSEN ROLLEN FÜR DEN SIEG!
splashed in sooty white paint on its engine and coal tender. Wheels must roll for victory.

These boys would have worked out the schedules. Once loaded, that train would go to the station where Louis and he had waved
auf Weidersehen
to Frau Oberkircher only to find that it hadn't been good-bye after all.

Astounded by what he had inadvertently come upon, St-Cyr took a moment to survey the barbershop. There were four reclining chairs with cushioned leather upholstery, hand-lever controls and nickel-plated footrests that gleamed. Bevelled wall mirrors, all but to the ceiling, were behind a countertop of variegated grey marble with inset basins, taps and retractable shower-hoses.

‘
Merde
, why send it here and not use it?' he sighed. Individual cabinet sterilizers were also on that counter, atomizers too, each with its little plunger-pump. Bay Rum, cologne and hair oil, the standard three bench bottles every
coiffeur
had for men's hair, were here, but these bottles, and many more of them, were of cobalt-blue glass webbed with silver to give a decidedly spice-trade look. Everyone who sat in any of these chairs would automatically see those elixirs and think of Arabia and of desert caravans, of dusky-eyed maidens bathing
toutes nues
in palm-treed oases or plump, honey-skinned Turkish belly dancers in an Istanbul café whose aroma would most certainly be of pungently black tobacco and strong, dark coffee.

There were bars of scented Castile soap that had been made in Aix from ‘pure olive oil' before the Defeat. These days to get anything like this in Paris, or that oil, was to get the impossible. ‘Would the monsieur like the lemon-, the rose-, or the lavender-scented?' he taunted. ‘A coconut shampoo,
peut-être
? A little of the Old Master Brilliantine for glossing the moustache? The
Vieux Seigneur
?'

Tweezers, nail clippers, hairdresser's smocks of white drill were here and had never been used. A honed, brand-new cutthroat razor gleamed, its balance perfect, the blade of Damascus steel.

Cutthroat in hand, he couldn't help but see himself in the mirrors: jaundiced, hollow-eyed, no light in his eyes anymore, just the fear of defeat, of worry too, eh? Worry over Hermann and his Giselle and Oona in Paris, worry over Gabrielle and her son too, and what was to become of them all and, yes, worry over trinitrophenol and just how was he to find it, yet not let anyone know he was searching for something like that?

Among the cutthroat razors there was a choice like no other and one would not be missed. Had Eugène Thomas managed to pocket it and then taken it to the carnival against all risk of discovery?

‘Like the colonel, we're digging a hole for ourselves and it just gets deeper and deeper.'

Choosing the Crème de Vichy, silk-velvetine shaving soap and using a brand-new badger-haired brush from … ‘Harrods of London,' he said, and fleetingly had to smile at the magic of a war that could be so utterly tragic. Lathering up, he was careful with the razor.

When Lucien Weber rejoined him, the chief inspector favoured cheeks that hadn't been shaved as closely in years.

‘My partner must see this,' he said, patting them a last time and feeling like a new man. ‘He's always going on about setting up some little business. A bar, a café …' And never mind that it was to be on the Costa del Sol and well out of France before it was too late. ‘A small hotel perhaps, of which business he knows nothing though thinks he has all the answers. Something like this would suit him far better. If he was with us, I'd get him to give me a proper trim just to prove he really can do such a thing when he puts his mind to it. By the way, that lavender aftershave you mentioned is perfect, but I prefer the jasmine. Ah, my shoes.
Danke
.'

‘I've found you some overboots as well, from the
Volksopfer
. Alain … the Fräulein Schrijen's brother brought them for the collection the last time he was here. Sophie …'

‘Is chairperson of that committee also. The people's offering of winter clothes for the boys along the Russian front.'

‘You may choose others if you wish, Inspector. I don't think the Fraulein Schrijen will mind. The pair I've selected should suit but …'

They did. They weren't new, of course, had been purchased in '39 probably, and from the Bon Marché in Paris, so not expensive yet still with years of life. A full thirty centimetres high and of natural rubber, with a fleece lining, they even had snow excluders, and when the trousers were tucked in, why no less than five buckles had to be done up.

The storeroom, just beyond the barbershop and complete with sorting tables, shelves and boxes, held not only overboots and shoes, but overcoats, scarves, hats, heavy pullovers, shirts, blouses, trousers and skirts even underclothes both male and female, though there were far fewer of the latter and certainly BDMs and nurses would also be stationed near the front.

‘The young master is always bringing her things.'

‘Nothing is ever wasted these days, is it? Everything has a use.' Even a dead man's overboots.

One table, small and rough-hewn, had been set up just outside the cage, one straight-backed chair on which to sit as he interviewed each of the combine, but that wasn't going to be of any use. Kohler knew Dorsche would wring each of them dry before they ever got here. Dorsche would start with Raymond Maillotte, would ask the test weaver only one question: Why had Prisoner 220371 been sentenced to death?

Maillotte might hold out, having already betrayed himself and his friends. He might take the blows and the shrieks, but even if he did, the others wouldn't know what he'd said. There was only one way to help them. Nothing else really mattered now. He had to get the colonel to intervene, had to convince him that his visiting detectives desperately needed time.

Stuffing the coat-hood with its wadding of newspapers into a torn pillowcase, grey from use, he headed for the exit, pushed past the guard who'd been delegated to watch him, heard that one's startled objections, the sighs of observant POWs as he started down the stairs, cramming the pillowcase into a pocket, going faster, faster until the cold light of day and the gently falling snow hit him.

Far along the soot- and snow-covered lane that ran between the steam plants and sheds to one side and the administrative block to the other, Dorsche and two of his
Greifer
were escorting Prisoner 220374 toward him. The Lagerfeldwebel was in the lead and clearly in a rage; the other two each had Maillotte by an arm, their Mausers slung. POWs dropped their shovels and stood to attention, snatching off their caps and baring their heads. Outside the kitchen, one of the Russians deliberately threw a bucket of potatoes across the trampled snow in front of them but was ignored.

Between the latrine and the root cellar, the ground was filthy, Dorsche livid. ‘WHERE IS THAT PARTNER OF YOURS, HERR KOHLER? WHY HAS HE NOT OBEYED THE ORDER FROM THE TOWER TO TURN BACK?'

A cigarette would do no good, a grin certainly wouldn't help. ‘Louis will turn up, Lagerfeldwebel. He can't have gone far.'

‘ALLE WERDEN BESTRAFT, KOHLER. ALLE!'

All are going on punishment.

‘STRAFLAGER IST KEIN ZUCKERLECKEN!'

Punishment camp is no picnic.

‘
Bitte
, find your friend and quickly,' said Dorsche, suddenly out of breath and realizing that the POWs in the barracks block would be at their windows watching the scene he'd created. ‘Tell him he must not do this, that you both, at all times, must be with one of the guards for your own safety, of course.'

Cigarettes had best be hauled out now, for Dorsche badly needed to save face.

‘
Danke
, Herr Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter. Prisoner 220374 can give us both the answer to the question I asked him.'

Maillotte was brought forward, the men in the background not moving from where they stood to attention, simply watching as POWs had done in every camp that had ever been. Maillotte hesitated. He flicked his dark brown eyes uncertainly over Dorsche and this Kripo, was still caked with that white dust, had slipped a hand into the right pocket of the blue coveralls whose faded fabric showed through only at its creases.

‘You are to answer,' said Dorsche, still catching his breath.

The test weaver lifted his gaze to the barracks block beyond them. Perhaps he tried to find the two windows his combine had shared, perhaps he simply begged the Russians and the others to forgive him, but one thing was certain. The two guards had stepped back and to his left; Dorsche and himself were now facing him, and between them there was perhaps no more than two metres.

‘Don't,' Kohler heard himself saying, but by then it was too late, though he ran. He slipped and nearly fell as he chased after Maillotte but the Frenchman had kicked off his sabots and had somehow found the wind of the gods. Maillotte leapt easily over the warning wire, didn't stop, didn't wait for the shots, grabbed the barbed wire and started to climb, the white dust of him being sprayed with blood and brains, the teeth erupting from his mouth as he coughed once, Kohler grabbing him and what he had tried to swallow …

A bloodied lump of partly masticated papier-mâché and a phosphorescent swastika button.

Dorsche hadn't seen him take them, not really. Inherently suspicious because he had to be, the Lagerfeldwebel grunted and said, ‘
Für ihn ist der Krieg zu Enden
, Kohler.' For him the war has ended.

‘No one is to be sent anywhere without the Kommandant's order, Lagerfeldwebel.'

Was the Detektiv about to throw up? ‘
Straf
cells are in the attic and that is where they must now be taken. You could have been shot.
Ach
, had you been patient, I might still have helped you, but now can do nothing.'

‘Then put this one in with the other one.'

‘Certainly, but your hand. You've cut it.'

‘The barbed wire.'

‘Are stitches needed?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘You must go immediately to the
Lagerführung
in any case. They have a first-aid kit and euflavine, an antiseptic, also some of the sulphanilamide powder. Sepsis you do not want. There is no doctor here, but as soon as possible, have one look at the wound or …
Ach
, there's a woman pharmacist in town who is excellent. The Unterlindenstrasse, near the bus terminal. I go there many times.'

And hadn't that same pharmacist already been mentioned? ‘I'll just rinse this off in the washhouse before I go to the
Lagerführung
.' Louis … Louis had to be in the one place Dorsche and his
Greifer
hadn't thought to look.

St-Cyr knew that no shots had been heard in the garage. There had been far too much background noise from the servicing of the lorries, and from the Works out there. A goods train was also being loaded, but still the news had travelled quickly.

‘To each saint his candle, Inspector,' said Lucien Weber, using a decidedly French expression but prudently giving it in
Deutsch
while sadly shaking his head.