Carnival (38 page)

‘But would have had to hurry on,' said Herr Kohler.

‘Thomas was to have cut her throat soon after they reached that turning point, Hermann.'

‘Those boys who were helping you, mademoiselle, wouldn't have taken it kindly your using them as cover while getting others to freedom. Even Thomas would have felt it.'

‘But once at the farm, they would have put as much distance as possible behind them, Hermann. They'd have split up, some going west, others north or south, but all into the depths of the Vosges, even though it's winter.'

‘Having stolen the father's collection of sporting rifles and shotguns, mademoiselle,' said Kohler, ‘and so much for your having tried to make their miserable lives a little less miserable.'

What they had said was true. ‘Sophie wouldn't have gone with any of them as a guide, not even Eugène, Inspectors, and they must have known this. She would never have left Renée to face things but would have tried to stop them, they knowing they would have had to kill her or be taken.'

Assuming, of course, that Renée Ekkehard would not have been hanged, and that Eugène Thomas would not have refused to cut Sophie's throat and was still alive. A foolish, foolish gamble all the same, felt St-Cyr. Desperate as all such attempts must be, and invariably doomed to fail.

As they passed the Xanthate Shed, identifiable simply by the rankness of its stench of rotten eggs, Kohler couldn't help but recall how Raymond Maillotte, the test weaver and fabric designer, had been chalk-white and terrified of being sucked into the rotating blades that had reduced the sheets of pure soda cellulose to the dust that had coated him.

Outside the Steeping Shed there was the smell of caustic soda, overlain like everything else by that of carbon disulphide. Here he couldn't help but think of how Gérard Léger, the glazier and no doubt leader of that combine, had stood at the far end of the shed and watched as Henri Savard, the carpenter and coffin maker, had panicked at the thought of being deliberately pushed or accidentally slipping into the steeping tank to which he'd been assigned by Lagerfeldwebel Jakob Dorsche.

At the Pulping Shed, the noise of the debarkers was sufficient, and here he remembered Martin Caroff, the Breton, neck deep in a soggy mush of ice-cold wood pulp, the assistant machinist bellyaching about a cracked grindstone.

Caroff had been the source of Renée Ekkehard's Celtic/Gallic mythology and carver of Boudicca for a Wheel of Fortune, but just what the hell had Löwe Schrijen done with those boys?

At the far end of the administrative block, the colonel's two-door Juraquatre was parked in darkness next to the entrance to the head office.

‘Mademoiselle, a moment,' said St-Cyr. ‘The ampoules you're carrying. Please hand them over.'

‘Must I, Inspector?' she asked, wincing at the loss.

‘Louis …'

‘
Merde alors
, Hermann, we can't have her falling asleep. Even that much Evipan wouldn't kill you, mademoiselle, but drugged you will be of no use, only a pronouncement of guilt.'

‘But I'd have been in dreamland, wouldn't I, Inspector, and soon in the Land of Everlasting Life those ancient peoples believe in?' she said, pressing them one by one into his hand.

Armed SS crowded the dimly lit staircase and the foyer above, their weapons cradled as they parted to let them pass. Most were young and in belted greatcoats under steel helmets, some of them not much older than the boy they had shot, but men who looked at her with an emptiness that filled her with dread.

A Scharführer crashed his heels, curtly ducking his head in a pre-emptive salute as he opened the door to the office. Löwe Schrijen, in a flannel shirt, its sleeves rolled up, and a dark green waistcoat with brass boar's-head buttons sat behind his desk, a cigar in hand trailing smoke. Colonel Rasche, in uniform with cap still tucked under the left arm, sat stiffly in front of that desk, having turned sideways a little to see her standing here as if alone.

Obersturmführer Meyer, his greatcoat flung carelessly open and peaked cap perched jauntily atop that angular, rake-jawed countenance, was here too, and staring emptily at her.

Alain … Alain, looking foolish and decidedly uncomfortable, stood to one side, the white death's-head on his cap far from terrifying now, a wineglass in his left hand and bottle of ice-clear schnapps in the other, the glass having been hastily filled at least twice already.

There was no sign of Serge Deiss or of Hervé Paulus; there was no sign of anyone else. The colonel could not even take out his pipe and tobacco pouch.

‘Kohler,' he croaked. ‘Kohler, what is this I hear?' He had even worn his Iron Cross First- and Second-Class, the
Pour le Mérite
also, and other medals.

‘Yes, tell us, Kohler,' said Löwe Schrijen. ‘Don't keep us waiting any longer.'

Two big, strong, powerful men at loggerheads.

In panic Herr Kohler tossed his partner a desperate glance. ‘We still have work to do, Colonel. Louis and I have to revisit the crime sites. I'm sorry, but that's the way of it.'

‘
Gut
,' grunted Rasche. ‘A suicide, Kohler. When I contacted Gestapo Boemelburg in Paris, I expressly informed him that I wanted the matter cleared beyond question.'

A suicide … Was this what he was now wanting? wondered St-Cyr.

‘There's little doubt, Colonel, that it was a sad affair and unfortunate,' went on Hermann, quickening all too readily to it.

‘Then Untersturmführer Schrijen did not kill her and try to make it look like a suicide, Kohler?' asked Rasche.

‘That … that's what we're working on, Colonel.'

‘But you're almost certain it was a suicide?'

‘Almost.'

Ah, Hermann, Hermann, how could you do this? asked St-Cyr silently. The years they had been together, the struggles always in the search for truth.

‘And the Fräulein Bödicker, Kohler. Was she involved in anything illegal?' demanded Rasche.

The crunch at last, thought St-Cyr, though Hermann didn't have the guts now to glance at his partner and former friend for advice, sanction or even support.

‘Involved in nothing, Colonel. That was all a misunderstanding.'

‘Then there you are, Obersturmführer. Deiss and Paulus were incorrect in their assessment of her.'

‘Very, Colonel,' said Hermann, having failed entirely to anticipate where things were leading.

‘She must still be interrogated,' snapped Meyer. ‘I insist.'

‘As is your right and duty, of course, Obersturmführer,' said Rasche levelly. ‘Kohler, is it that you are now free to release the Fräulein Bödicker into such worthy hands, or do you and the Oberdetektiv St-Cyr require further from her?'

‘Further, Colonel. With your permission, we would like her to accompany us to the site of the first suicide.'

The carnival.

‘
Ach
, it's late and you've had no sleep,' said Rasche. ‘Perhaps at first light, and before the Obersturmführer and his men arrive with the hearse to remove the body.'

At 1000 hours,
mon vieux
—could you not have seen this coming? asked St-Cyr silently.

‘We'd best go out there now, then,' said Hermann, the quaver in his voice revealing how betrayed he now felt, fool that he'd been to have tried to appease them.

‘As you wish. There is one thing, though,' said Rasche. ‘The detail I had out there have all had to be recalled and sent east to the front.'

To Russia.

Kohler gripped the steering wheel as he floored the Citroën. Ahead of them, through the darkness and the snow, lay the Kastenwald; behind them Kolmar and the wire. Victoria was sitting tensely beside him, Louis on the other side of her, both not having said a thing because they knew they'd never get out of this alive. For himself, he'd never see Gerda again, would never be able to warn her to leave the Reich while she still could, never be able to tell her that their splitting up had been his fault, that the work, the months and years away from her and the farm had done it. No chance to comfort her now over the loss of Jurgen and Hans, no chance to even say he was sorry and that he had missed them and herself.

Again he anxiously glanced in the rearview. Again he was forced to admit that no one was following. Rasche had simply left them on their own until 1000 hours. Rasche had cut himself off from them and had made a deal with Schrijen. He must have. ‘Louis, if Löwe Schrijen has had those boys in
Straf
killed, I don't know what I'll do.'

‘Agree with your colonel, Hermann. Without our weapons, there is little else, is there?'

‘And I've let him walk us right into the shit, haven't I?'

‘You said it, I didn't.'

‘
Ach
, don't get huffy.
Merde alors
, what else was I to have said? That I was certain Alain Schrijen had hanged Renée Ekkehard?'

‘Admit it, you couldn't bring yourself to arrest the boy.'

‘Be reasonable. I had to go along with Rasche. He was in such a tight spot, he made me squeak.'

‘Because he knew you would, Hermann. He knew you inside out. When the chips are down, mademoiselle, patriots like you and me have nothing to lose but our lives and self-respect!'

‘Louis …'

‘Hermann, you caved in. You let him lead us to this. Even in my darkest moments, and I have had many of them, mademoiselle, I have felt …
Ah,
mon Dieu
, what have I felt? That my faith in this partner of mine would be restored. All a detective ever has is his sense of right and wrong, his judgment,
n'est-ce pas
, but that colonel of his has left us to face the libretto he has composed with the compliance of this … this player of triangles, gongs, bicycle horns and squeak boxes!'

The Citroën skidded, turning itself round and round until facing east again and at idle. ‘
Sacré nom de nom
, Louis, was I to have slapped the bracelets on Alain Schrijen in front of that
salaud
Meyer?'

These two, were they now to start yelling at each other, wondered Victoria, only to hear the chief inspector snap, ‘An arrest. We've done it before. Why not now?'

‘Because there were far more of them and we don't even have our weapons.'

‘You didn't then, and neither did I.'

‘A château near Vouvray,' managed Herr Kohler.

‘Are you absolutely certain Alain Schrijen murdered Renée Ekkehard?' demanded the chief inspector. ‘Come, come, Herr Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter of the invincible Gestapo's Kripo, swear to it!'

‘Louis, what the hell's this you're now implying?'

‘
Ah,
bon, mon vieux
, that as the boy has claimed, he may not have killed her.'

‘But then that leaves …'

‘Your colonel, Hermann. Why else would he have planted a beret on that girl's head, one that we would notice right away and wonder why she would have worn such a thing?'

‘When a woollen toque would have been far more appropriate,' muttered Kohler bleakly.

‘Why else would he have all but accepted our concluding that if she'd been out skiing all night, she must have been up to something illegal?'

Like moving deserters.

‘Why else would he have torn off that scrap of notebook paper and stuffed it into Eugène Thomas's pockets unless he knew we would find it and think the worst?'

The trinitrophenol.

‘Not only is that colonel of yours ruthless, Hermann, he's shrewd enough to have swindled us to save himself, his daughter and her mother.'

‘Yet he didn't know what those boys had planned, Louis. Tell me he didn't.'

‘Of course not, but would have figured it out even as we were struggling to do so ourselves.'

A man who could walk over corpses. ‘Then it must have been Rasche, with or without Werner Lutze, or Werner himself, or …'

‘
Ah,
mais alors, alors
, Hermann!'

‘Louis, it was Rasche.'

‘Finally, even when in the face of great difficulty, he's beginning to think again as a detective should, mademoiselle, though still not quite clearly.'

‘Sophie, Chief Inspector … Is it that you now believe she killed Renée to save herself?'

Pilot in the Sky, Maze of Darkness, Danceorama—one by one Victoria located them as she waited beside the Citroën. Always at night, the last hours were the darkest; in winter, the cruelest. Beyond the Devil's Saucer, the tall silhouette of the Ferris wheel's iron girders could not be seen but even so, she could hear the frost working at them. ‘It's as though it has to move,' Renée had sighed on a night like this. They had come out to meet and hide a German corporal the courier had brought through from the Totenkopf. The sounds had frightened Renée who had immediately thought of Martin Caroff's tales of the Phantom Queen, only to softly laugh at herself when told their origin and say, ‘It wants to turn for joy, Victoria, for all the pleasure it brings, the magic.' The freedom from life's cares, from life itself. Renée had often revealed her innermost thoughts, the childlike wonder too, the intense delight and surprise she had immediately felt when presented with some long-sought little treasure.

That earring, Sophie, said Victoria silently. Those lovely greenish-brown eyes of hers, would have widened, wouldn't they, become incredibly clear, if only to quickly return to the fear and despair that had so often of late shadowed her. The terror, Sophie, of your being followed. Her absolute conviction of what must happen not only to herself but to us—wasn't that how she felt?

The Noah's Ark was nearest and just beyond the tourer, behind which Herr Kohler, its ignition and lights switched off, had let the Citroën come to a stop. St-Cyr had opened the door on the passenger's side and was rummaging about for something. Herr Kohler, having moved a little from her, was now closer to him. They wouldn't know where she was; would never be able to find her until it was too late. Only Eugène and Raymond would have known there was picric acid, long forgotten at the Works and where and how best to get it. Only they would have had access to Sophie's keys. They could have brought it out here, little by little.