Carnival (29 page)

She wasn't going to appreciate it, but had best be told. ‘Maillotte said nothing further, Fräulein. He made sure of that.'

‘Raymond,' she said with longing, the bow faltering as she bit back the tears. ‘He and Eugène were the very best of friends. They always got on and worked well together. He wouldn't have killed Eugène. How could he have?'

She was desperate. ‘He did say the combine couldn't decide who and how best to carry out the sentence.'

‘But … but you've just said …'

Again the bow and arrow faltered but only for a moment. ‘That was earlier, when he confessed.'

‘To Dorsche? Does the Lagerfeldwebel now know what they were planning?'

‘Ask him. Maybe he'll tell you.'

‘I can't. I mustn't.'

He took a step, she cried out, ‘DON'T! Just … just stay where you are.'

‘Then give me a cigarette.'

‘I haven't any. I don't often use them and left mine at the house. Renée … Renée used to get them for me.'

‘From Werner Lutze?'

‘In fun she used to call him our acquirer which always pleased him, for he's really quite shy. Junos, Lord Chesterfields … whatever was going, Herr Lutze would have some. He knew she was getting them for me or for Victoria, that she didn't use them herself. Charcoal for the braziers we'll use at the fête to warm the hands was no problem for him. Tallow and beeswax, also, for the ceremonial torches all such events must have at their openings. Prizes too. Teddy bears, china figurines, vases, artificial flowers, wine, of course, and schnapps. Lots of things. Donations, all of them.'

And the
Karneval
was still very much on, but whoever had sat in that field office of theirs beside that girl on that Sunday had dribbled cigarette ash and had tried to remove it. ‘Why not lower the bow? Arrows are no fun. My partner and I once had to deal with a crossbow and quickly found out what it was like.'

‘What were those men up to?'

‘Had they realized what you and the others were doing—isn't that really what you desperately need to know?'

‘If Renée and Victoria were up to anything, I knew nothing of it.'

‘Taking things behind the wire? Buttons, bits of string, bread and cigarettes, carpenter's nails …'

‘The packets out at the wagon.'

‘There are thirty or more of them, all in tidy little bundles.'

‘For prizes, Inspector. Prizes!'

And wouldn't you know it! ‘Who suggested this?'

‘Gérard Léger. We were always finding lots of nails. There are far more bundles than you saw. They're in with the rest of the papier-mâché balls. Most of the nails were bent, but when cleaned and straightened, they were fine and perfectly acceptable.'

And weren't nails as scarce as hen's teeth in France too, and wasn't that glazier a veteran of two wars and most probably the leader of that combine?

Shrapnel, sighed Kohler inwardly. Torches, charcoal fires, bundles of nails and utter chaos. ‘How close will the nails be to the
Jeu de massacre?
'

Why did he need to know such a thing? ‘There's to be a table with prizes between it and the Wheel of Fortune's booth.'

‘And the braziers and torches?'

‘Why should it matter?'

‘Please just answer.'

‘There's to be a brazier at each table, with torches at either side of each booth. If you'd not been so intent on stealing my keys, you would have seen the plans on my desk for the fête. There'll be music too. Tambourines, drums and recorders, the musicians all in period costume. The Renaissance. Renée … Renée had a fabulous imagination and had planned it all. A jester, a troubadour, a magician and fortune-teller, a puppet show for the children.'

‘You three were moving deserters through to the Vosges.'

‘If Renée and Victoria were mixed up in anything so illegal as an act of terrorism, Inspector, and I very much doubt they would have been, I knew absolutely nothing of it. How could I have? Aren't I busy enough? Didn't I have to delegate virtually everything to them?'

‘Drugged … was that girl drugged before you hanged her?'

‘I didn't! I could never have done something like that. Not to Renée, not to anyone. I wasn't even there. I was busy at the Works!'

‘And on that Sunday?'

‘I was here with Father.'

‘And your brother, Fräulein?'

‘Alain? He was on duty at Natzweiler-Struthof. Didn't
Vati
tell you that?'

‘It's what he didn't tell me that's interesting.'

‘Did he send those two men after Victoria?'

‘I think so.'

‘Then may God be with her.'

Alone again, St-Cyr stood under clear moonlight. The Devil's Saucer hung at a crazy tilt. The
Tonneau de l'amour
that Yvonne Lutze and her husband had explored was long, low and silent­. Behind it, and not seen from here, would be Dr. Bonnet's Travelling Museum of Anatomy. Broken glass, she had said. Shattered jars, Werner Lutze having forced a way into it, she thinking only of formalin and a daughter who had begun a ‘preserving stage' at the age of ten.

‘
Merde
, it gets to one, doesn't it, this place,' he muttered to himself.

Rasche and Lutze had gone back to town, to the house. Obviously the colonel had felt threatened when he had asked Paris for them. His office was being bugged; things could not have been right between him and Löwe Schrijen and those two detectives. Hermann was, of course, quite able to take care of himself but had always counted on backup from this partner of his. ‘And now?' he had to ask. ‘Now Hermann could be gone from me, the frontier closed.'

An Antarctica of leather covered the Citroën's front seat, the ignition was irresponsible, the engine recalcitrant. Again and again it refused to start. Had Lutze and the colonel made certain he would never leave the carnival, had someone else?

It started. It idled. It grew more confident and settled into a rhythm that was music to the ears, but the sigh he gave was caught in his throat.

There was someone behind him. As yet there was no sight of them in the rearview, only this feeling, this sixth sense that he wasn't alone.

Deftly, silently, he found the cutthroat and held it at the ready. Still there was no sight or sound from this unwanted passenger. Perhaps they would think to wait until his hands were on the steering wheel and gear shift; perhaps if he turned off the engine …

Switching on the heater, its sound seemed more desperate than usual. ‘
Mirage
,' he said. ‘Fräulein Bödicker, that scent Renée Ekkehard gave you haunts me.'

‘Have they really left?' she asked of the colonel and Werner Lutze, the muffled quaver betraying her fear.

‘Gone,' he said. ‘Why not come and sit up front?'

‘It's best I don't. Then, if necessary, I can hide on the floor.'

‘You came on skis from the bookshop?'

‘A cigarette … Have you got one?'

Putting the cutthroat away, he opened his coat. Suit and waistcoat pockets were dug into. ‘Emergency rations,' he muttered. ‘Hermann and I always try to have a little something.
Ah,
bon
, mademoiselle. The match, it is necessary.'

It flared, lighting up the interior, but she'd hidden herself well.

‘I didn't even see those two detectives of the colonel's,' she said as the match went out. ‘Claudette was watching the street this afternoon because they had told her to, and when she saw their car racing up it, she knew they must have been coming for me. There's a passage behind the courtyards. She and
maman
were always using it when they wanted things to be private. She … she said she would …'

‘Hold them.'

‘She risked her life for me, Inspector. I hid. Coward that I am, I didn't even go back to see if she was all right.'

‘Just returned later for your skis.'

He would have to be told. ‘They wrecked the bookshop and house, searching for something but must have gotten tired of waiting for me and … and took Claudette back to her place. Now I don't even know what's happened to her.'

‘Then we'd best find out, hadn't we?'

‘Sophie lied to you, Inspector. She and Renée were deeply in love. It was a very tender and secretive thing, and it developed over time. Oh for sure, I was the only other one to know of it until Alain found out, and he must have. Renée would have panicked when he took her back to that room he had rented for her at the Natzweiler ski lodge. She would have tried to get away from him.'

‘But had she also been drugged, mademoiselle?'

‘I … I don't know. How could I? It … it was wrong of Sophie to have implied that I must have known and that I might have had something to do with Renée's death. It was a suicide, Inspector. Renée was dangerously depressed and Sophie certainly knew of this, as I did. That brother of hers is a sadist. Renée … Renée didn't just see a man hanged three times. Alain proudly told her of the scientific experiments they'd been conducting.'

Experiments, Inspector, whispered Renée Ekkehard as if also present. And now what do you think are your chances of returning to Paris? What are those of your partner?

Out of the darkness of this crooked, narrow street that had seen the centuries, one light glowed a paltry phosphorescent blue.

‘Our air-raid shelter,' whispered Victoria. ‘The shop isn't far now.'

‘It's at the bend,' said St-Cyr, having switched off the headlamps some time ago. ‘Let's leave the car here, mademoiselle, and continue on foot.'

‘Must I come with you? Is it really necessary?'

‘Those two detectives of the colonel's will have heard the engine.'

He pointed to something up the street, the houses crowding closely on either side. Where things were not totally in shadow, there was light from the snow cover, but always there had been lamps in this street she had loved, the rue Madeleine of her childhood, the Madeleinestrasse. ‘Another car.'

‘Their Primastella.'

‘Claudette's flat is on the second floor.'

He paused to peer into the car, muttered, ‘A suitcase.' Listening first to the street, he shone a blue-blinkered torch briefly over the Chantilly lace
maman
had given Claudette years ago.

‘Closed, by order,' whispered this Sûreté, ‘but not closed at all.'

The door hadn't been smashed in. Claudette must simply have left it off the latch when she had run to the bookshop. Her broom had fallen, and there it was still lying on the pavement. No one had dared to touch it.

Gently he nudged the door and it swung in a little. Immediately Victoria felt the tiles underfoot and knew the staircase would abruptly rise. Step by step, and feeling his way, the Inspector paused at each to listen closely. No torchlight now. None. Always as a child she had been in such a hurry to climb these stairs.

‘Breathe silently,' he whispered.

It took forever to reach the flat but here, too, the door was open.

‘Otto, what is happening to us?' asked Yvonne Lutze. ‘You've both been keeping things from me.'

‘They're not good. I'd be less the man I am were I to tell you differently.'

The
Kachelofen
's firebox had been banked long ago, but all about her in the kitchen behind the
Stube
, the aroma of red cabbage and sausages mocked her. She would have to use the terrine to keep the meal warm for the detectives, would put the lid on, then the lock, wouldn't look at Otto or at Werner, would simply take the key from her pocket and press it to her lips. ‘Did either of you kill that girl?'

‘Of course not.'

‘You both knew she was going out there. You both knew those three must have been up to something. Werner … Werner knew exactly where that notebook of Victoria's was kept. How is it, please, that my husband knew you had best get it before someone else did?'

Still she wouldn't look at him or at Werner. ‘
Liebling
, I gave it to St-Cyr and Kohler.'

‘Don't you dare
darling
me. Geneviève is in danger of arrest and not because of any student demonstration.'

‘Arrest? Not yet. Not if cool heads prevail.'

The urge to shout was with her, but she wasn't a shouter and he knew it. ‘Let's see it through—is that it, Otto? Please don't forget that child of ours doesn't even
know
what's been going on here or that it must threaten her life. You ask for detectives from Paris? You claim Renée's death a murder, yet
still
you tell me nothing? Nor will you, Werner. Aren't I your wife?' she asked as he stepped from behind his colonel to look at her in that way he sometimes did, as though the two of them were one against all others.

She would never understand how he felt, thought Lutze, would always see him as his colonel's Oberfeldwebel. ‘We think they were moving deserters through to the Vosges.'

What could have been plainer? ‘I knew it. I felt it. And now I'm broken. What you smashed when you deserted me, Otto, you've smashed again!'

The white milk jug, the crinoline from the Soufflenheim pottery was near, but she wouldn't dash it on the floor, not Yvonne, thought Rasche. Not the girl he'd known. ‘You were aware that I had a wife I couldn't divorce.'

A barren woman five years his senior, he had claimed. One he could barely tolerate. The daughter of a wealthy landowner, with lands she had inherited. ‘I came to know you for what you are, Otto. Now get out. Get out of my family's kitchen, the two of you. Leave me to my memories of the daughter I held and taught to use this terrine.'

‘Did you leave everything you found in Renée's room as I asked?' demanded Rasche.

‘Renée's room, Otto? Was it not Geneviève's?'