Carnival (28 page)

‘They were
not
my friends! They were associates. People with whom I had to work.'

‘Yes, yes, of course. Perhaps it is, though, that Herr Kohler can enlighten us further. One murder, if indeed it really was, and we'll never know, will we, unless Kommandant Rasche agrees to an autopsy, which I very much doubt.'

And one suicide,
Vati
? wondered Sophie, but he went on with, ‘Now another death for the colonel to explain in his weekly reports to Berlin and to Kommandant Zill at Natzweiler-Struthof, Kohler. So again I must ask, what were the men of that combine up to? Blood on your hand and yet no cut across its back or palm? Blood from Prisoner 220374's mouth, I think.'

What had he coughed up, eh? snorted Kohler silently, and just what had Schrijen said to this daughter of his to make her so wary? ‘Blood and brains, Generaldirektor. I needed a moment to myself. That's why I left Dorsche and went into the barracks block washhouse to clean myself up.'

‘Where there was a crowd of men.'

And so much for his having a moment to himself, thought Sophie. ‘Eugène and the others weren't up to anything,
Vati
. If they had been, he would have told me.'

‘But took his own life instead,
meine Liebe
?'

‘He had no reason to.'

Mein Gott
, but she could be tough when needed, felt Kohler, only to hear Schrijen ask, ‘Another of your associates, Sophie? Isn't it true that you spent a lot of time in his company?'

‘I had to! Alain would have done the same had he not been away.'

‘
Ach
, that is so, of course. Before he volunteered to join the services, Kohler, my son kept in close consultation with the lab, myself also, as I still do. Always it is the lab that has to get things right before production commences.'

‘Raymond Maillotte was our fabric designer and test weaver,
Vati
. Where are we to find another? We've orders to fill well into next year. Where will we find another Eugène?'

Gut
, the child had come through. ‘I'll see to it. I'll put in a call to Gauleiter Wagner who will understand and get on to Berlin for us. A sweep of the Gauleiter Saukel's foreign workers. Somewhere we'll find replacements. For now we have a little time, ten days until the current run is finished. By then they'll be here.

‘Now, Kohler, since the colonel's two detectives have yet to arrive on my doorstep, why not bring them in from the cold.'

‘They're warm enough in your smokehouse, probably, but I'll go and have a look if you like.'

‘You do that and I'll build up the fire.'

8

Grey and congealed, its aroma repulsive to a palate far too sensitive even after two and a half years of Defeat, the glutinous mass of the Wehrmacht's soup glistened in the lantern light but was waxy otherwise and hot like boiled synthetic rubber. The bread was just plain terrible. These two staples—could he call them that? wondered St-Cyr—had fed, and often did, the world's largest and strongest army, but was it still that, the Americans having at last entered the war and the Russians having done the impossible at Stalingrad?

He didn't know—how could he? Boiled onions were here in the stiffened pudding of the soup, salt in plenty, and far too much of it. ‘Colonel,' he said dispassionately as he set the galvanized bucket aside, ‘why was that beret in her pocket and why, please, did you then put it on her thereby condemning her to an illegal act a coroner or undertaker would most certainly have noted and had to report?'

‘First, I didn't know why she would have had it at all, a secretary of mine. Secondly, I removed it when we laid her out here. I wouldn't have said a thing of it but …'

‘Only to put it on her
after
Eugène Thomas was killed?'

‘
Verdammt
, that one was murder too!
Ach
, I'll admit that what I did was impulsive. I was angry. I was certain Alain Schrijen must have had something to do with her death but I couldn't understand the chemist's hanging.
Mein Gott
, why kill such a much-needed man? Löwe Schrijen was aware of how dependent on Thomas that daughter of his had become. I sat with Renée's body in that other wagon for hours trying to sort it all out. It didn't make sense.'

‘Admit it, please. You were afraid Löwe Schrijen and his son were about to point the finger at you for having let that
Winterhilfswerk
Committee have the freedom they had, but let's also not forget Frau Lutze and your daughter were at terrible risk.'

Löwe must have told Kohler of them. ‘He's a bastard, that man. Families like his always breed them. You've only to meet the son.'

‘
Ah,
bon
, Colonel. Now, please, by putting the beret on her what did you hope to accomplish?'

Paris had said it would be step by step with St-Cyr. ‘I knew Löwe Schrijen would find a way in here to have a look at her, even though I had posted a guard.'

‘So you left a warning for him that you knew things weren't right.'

‘Then called Paris. I had to have someone I could trust.'

‘But, Colonel, you had given Herr Schrijen ample time to have had a look at her
before
putting that beret on her?'

Paris had said this too, that St-Cyr and Kohler would lead one on. ‘
Ach
, the warning was for yourselves, and for this I apologize.'

‘Don't try to avoid it,
mein lieber Oberst
. You knew we had a reputation and that this, if nothing else, would divert Herr Schrijen from yourself and your loved ones, especially if we could prove it really was murder and would then be stupid enough to point the finger at the guilty.'

‘Löwe Schrijen and that son of his.'

Now ask him again about the beret, Inspector, whispered Renée, though her coffin had been sealed in that other wagon. ‘Was she to have used that beret as a sign to others she hoped to meet, Colonel? Those personal columns that are spread before you. The
Münchner Neueste Nachrichten
?'

‘Yes, yes, Wednesday, 20 January.
Das Rheingold und Die Walküre
. Were they moving two of those bastards?'

Deserters. ‘What do you think?'

Did he have to hear it? ‘Guidance
, verdammt!
'

Now force him into a corner, Inspector, Renée seemed to whisper. ‘And on the following Wednesday, the twenty-­seventh, Colonel, you and the Fräulein …'

The big hands came together, the fingers tightly locking as Rasche took him in.

‘We were here. That girl … The Fräulein Ekkehard wanted me to stop in.'

‘“Stop,” Colonel? You were passing by, were you, from …'

Gott im Himmel
, must St-Cyr persist? ‘All right, all right! She begged me to bring her out here. “For an hour,” she said. “There's a little something I want you to see.” She was like a child, a girl I once knew.'

Yvonne Lutze, or her daughter Geneviève, Inspector? Ask him! demanded Renée only to be told, It's not the moment. ‘The
Jeu de massacre
, Colonel?'

‘Those,' grunted Rasche, indicating the buckets of papier-mâché balls that had been recently made and others that had been found.

Oberfeldewebel Lutze, his Schmeisser slung, continued to tend the fire in the stove using scraps from the coffin. Rasche got up to reach across the table and take one of the balls that had yet to be painted. ‘How could she have hidden such a thing from me, Inspector? A girl I'd as much as adopted.'

In disgust, he crushed the ball in a fist and tossed it to Herr Lutze who dropped it into the stove.
Dieu merci
, there was no whoosh of flame but this did not mean there wouldn't be with others that were, no doubt, hidden. ‘Colonel, tell me what happened on that afternoon.'

Paris had also said this one and that partner of his would keep a suspect talking by asking seemingly incidental questions. ‘I busied myself in here while Renée went out to open up the wagon in which those helpers of theirs had stored the game. When she called, asking me to bring a bucket of those things, she was happy—excited and jumping up and down. The butcher, the baker, schoolmaster, old maid, village policeman and priest had all been finished and those she had set out on their turnstile pedestals, their colours bright against the sunlit snow. “Now you first,” she said, and fool that I was, I enjoyed myself.'

A confession of sorts, whispered Renée. Normally the men in our
Arbeitslager
aren't allowed to see complete newspapers only selected articles which have been posted for all to read. Tell him this!

There is no need, mademoiselle. Your colonel understands.

‘
Ach
, newspapers were needed in order to make the papier-mâché. I allowed Renée to bring whichever she wished from the office, since we get far too many, though there's virtually nothing of value in any of them.'

‘The
Kölnische Zeitung
,
Berliner Tageblatt
and others, Colonel, the personals columns which those men must have avidly read and gradually found in them a further meaning.'

‘
Mein Gott
, how could I possibly have known? Never in my life have I bothered to read such trash!'

As Beate desires someone older, Inspector? Renée seemed to ask. Wouldn't a vanity that is huge have caused him to peruse them in private?

Don't deride him, mademoiselle. It will only hinder the investigation.

Then please ask him if he ever dipped those hands of his into the papier-mâché. Ask if he ever helped me to make some of those missiles. Ask if the men, our now knowing that they had been making
guncotton
, would have laughed at the two of us behind our backs. Ask …

‘Colonel, when did you first begin to think that something must be wrong?'

Was this safer ground? ‘When Löwe Schrijen began to have that daughter of his followed.'

‘And when did you notice that this was happening?'

‘In mid-December. I saw them in the street outside one of the meetings the Fräulein Schrijen was addressing but they left in their car as soon as they noticed me. I'd gone there to ask Renée where she had put a file I needed. The girl came out of a nearby café and was flustered to find me there, but I thought no more of it. She'd been unsettled and definitely not herself since that skiing weekend at Natzweiler-Struthof. Victoria Bödicker had an arm locked in hers and was obviously keeping a very close eye on her. I … well, I didn't pursue the matter.'

‘Had anything else happened to her while at the quarry, Colonel?'

Anything, thought Rasch, beyond witnessing the same hanging three times until successful. Sophie Schrijen must have told St-Cyr this, and if not her, then Victoria Bödicker. ‘Only a skiing accident. At least that is what she claimed. Personally I doubted it but felt it a private matter. The girl was an excellent skier.'

But does he now suspect what really happened to me, Inspector?

‘She had become engaged then, had she, Colonel?'

‘That didn't happen formally until Christmas Eve.'

And three weeks of absolute terror over what Alain Schrijen must do, Inspector? Didn't Sophie tell you and Victoria that I must have betrayed my true self and them too?

‘And after Christmas, Colonel?'

‘Look, I'm certain that boy must have found out what those three were up to. Perhaps the girl inadvertently said something while at Natzweiler-Struthof. Löwe Schrijen then started having his daughter followed. Renée was then murdered. How could I not have felt her death far from being a suicide? A devout Catholic? A girl who was gentle, kind and full of life?
Mein Gott
, everyone had a warm spot for her, myself especially.'

Ah,
bon
, mademoiselle, and yet another small confession on his part and reassurance that he could not possibly have had anything to do with your actual killing, though that still leaves us to deal with Herr Lutze, and certainly if you were to have lived, you would have been a distinct threat to them, since Herr Lutze and his colonel are virtually inseparable. ‘Thomas was then hanged …'

‘But you've not yet settled that, have you, even though he was condemned by his own men, only one of whom, other than Thomas, had a pass to the administration block. Raymond Maillotte, Inspector. The weakest link in that combine and one whose weakness, I must emphasize, Lagerfeldebel Dorsche knew of only too well and used.'

‘Hermann may have something.'

‘Then let's hope that nothing has happened to him.'

‘Your detectives, Colonel …'

‘Believe me, neither of those two would have bothered to sit down with Renée to discuss a bauble. They'd have strung her up and gladly and could easily have got at Thomas if ordered to by Löwe Schrijen or that son of his.'

‘Yet you've not let us see their report.'

‘Because there is nothing in it but lies. It's all a cover-up, and the smoother the better as far as Löwe Schrijen is concerned.'

‘Herr Oberdetektiv,' interjected Lutze, ‘the Untersturmführer Schrijen was well aware of how much Renée wanted to find the mate to that earring. Renée was always looking for such things. He would have known how pleased she would have been.'

‘And distracted,' muttered Rasche, motioning Lutze to join them at the table. ‘Tell the Oberdetektiv about that boy's last visit to the house.'

A cigarettte was offered and accepted, the colonel sliding his tobacco pouch and matches over to this Sûreté.

It was time to let St-Cyr know where things really stood, thought Lutze. ‘The Untersturmführer came to take Renée to his father's house in town on Christmas Eve, Inspector. He spoke of the biscuit tin they kept in one of those trunks here—she had shown it to him early in November when they'd all come out here for a picnic. He asked if she and Victoria or Sophie had found anything new to add to it. “A veritable treasure-trove, that tin,” he had said with a laugh. “If only those things were real, my sister could auction them off and would have no need of fixing anything for that fête she plans to hold.”'

It would have to be asked, ‘Had Alain Schrijen access to a means of drugging her, Colonel?'

If only the answer could be served on a platter. ‘They've plenty of ampoules at the quarry camp.'

‘Ampoules
… Then we will have to have the autopsies done.'

‘And the others of that combine, Inspector?' asked Rasche. ‘Will you then stand idly by when they are sent to that camp for reinforced interrogation?'

And what will they cry out? demanded Renée. That he had given them so much freedom they'd taken advantage of it?

‘There are ten of them being held in
Straf
, Inspector,' said Werner Lutze. ‘The three who are left of the five who were released under guard to work here, and the rest of their combine.'

Those men would face certain death and St-Cyr knew it well enough, thought Rasche. ‘Find Kohler,
mein Lieber
. Look at things thoroughly but in the light of present realities.'

‘Suicides … Is it that you now wish us to say it definitely wasn't murder?'

‘I want answers. Nothing else but the truth.'

‘And Löwe Schrijen, what will he do if it was his son, as you and Herr Lutze have tried to suggest, as has Sophie Schrijen?'

‘Believe me, Chief Inspector, Löwe will do whatever suits him best.'

The smokehouse was far from lonely but had been locked, its latch now solidly in place. Coughing came from inside, first from Hervé Paulus, Kohler felt, and then from Serge Deiss.

‘Please don't open it, Inspector,' said Sophie Schrijen, stepping from the shadows to stand in moonlight. ‘I've only just closed it. I once locked my brother in there for a few minutes. He'd been spying on me, and for days afterward stank of wood smoke and complained of tears, but otherwise was fine.
Vati
will deal with them.'

She'd a bow in hand, an arrow pointed at him, and a quiver on her back.

‘You took my keys,' she said. ‘I'd like them back.'

‘Louis has them.'

‘What were Eugène and the others up to?'

‘There was a little carving …'

‘Of a chariot and Boudicca, its rider. It's for the Wheel of Fortune which is to be mounted horizontally so that when spun, the chariot will go round and round until it stops and Boudicca points her spear at the winner. Martin Caroff, our assistant machinist, carved it. Martin liked Eugène. They all did. They couldn't have been planning to kill him.'