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‘I was just taking my pills. They're for the digestion.'

‘Have you ulcers?'

‘A few. They're not bleeding, not yet.'

‘Then perhaps I can help them. Schraum's uncle, the Gauleiter of Stralsund and SA-Obersturmführer, is an avid coin collector who writes to others of the same interest. He's also a distant relative of Goering.'

A storm trooper … a relative … The pills caught. Kohler choked. Moisture rushed into his eyes as he swallowed hard and forced himself not to reach for his glass.

The Benzedrine stung. ‘A coin collector?'

‘And a relative of the Reichsmarschall and Reichsführer himself.'

‘Who also collects coins.'

‘Roman ones, my Hermann. Things like those with Nero's head and those of Caesar Augustus and all the rest.'

‘Sestertii and aurei.' Brandl already had someone working on it! The bastard was even competing with the SS and the rue Lauriston on this one too!

‘Have a little sip. It'll help. Then tell me about the girl, about the room and about the villa at Number twenty-three.' He'd see how much they knew, then call him my Hermann again to see if the bait had not just been taken but the hook set deeply.

Another whisky came for the Gestapo's warbler and then a plate of Norwegian smoked salmon with little wedges of toast, which he wolfed as only one of the Gestapo's most disloyal men would wolf.

‘Common crime, my Hermann. It's with us every day and must be cleansed from the streets, but what's this? Your eyes keep straying to the ceiling. Is it because of your little pigeon – what was her name?'

‘Giselle le Roy.'

A fist had clenched, a slice of the salmon had fallen on to the carpet. Good, very good. ‘Yes, yes, Giselle. Perhaps you cannot find her and wish the assistance not just of the Kommandant of Greater Paris but also that of the Bureau Otto?'

‘Who's got her?'

‘Really, Herr Kohler, the darkness you betray so willingly is admirable. Not the Bureau, I assure you. Pigeons are only of interest if they can lead us to gold that others want and are too greedy to share with the proper authorities.'

‘Morande?'

‘He offered Schraum half of what the Audit girl could bring and the Corporal bit, as corporals like Schraum will do who are eager to impress their uncles back home in the hopes of being given a step up the ladder by a certain Reichsmarschall.'

‘Was Morande connected to any of the gangs?'

‘To Lafont or Carbone or any of the others? Really, Herr Kohler, for a detective and a fellow Bavarian you surprise me.'

‘Talbotte's washed his hands of the affair. Even records down at Headquarters are being tight.'

‘They've clipped your wings, have they?'

Kohler's head was singing. The girls above were beginning to dance. His heart was pounding. Brandl was blurred.

‘Really, my Hermann, do you not know the mackerel made himself unwelcome in the Santé by coughing up a name he should never have mentioned? That someone paid him back. It's that simple. Find out who he is and you'll find the forger. Then bring me the loot so that the Reichsmarschall can gloat over his newest coins and we can have all the rest.'

‘What makes you so certain there are any coins – any real ones?'

Brandl savoured things. Baiting Hermann had had its moments. Henri Lafont should never have gone over to work for the other side, for the SS of the avenue Foch! The rue Lauriston was getting far too greedy for its own good and meddling in things it should never have meddled in.

‘Industrialists who have found favour in high places, my Hermann, should always make certain they have declared every last sou of their valuables.'

‘M Antoine Audit? The silk, eh?'

‘Explosives, glass and wine, truffles and, yes, the silk.'

Just like the old grandmother had said, Antoine Audit had had to sell through Brandl's Bureau Otto.

‘It's only a thought,' said Brandl. ‘After all, Bonny, your partner's former colleague did mark the girl down as being a big one, right?'

‘Who told them about her?'

‘Find the mackerel's killer and you'll find out. He must be a fund of information, that one. A bank.'

Lagace, the baker, brushed flour from his forearms. The one from the Sûreté had come across the street to ask more questions; the one from the Gestapo had taken the Citroën and driven away some time ago.

Merde
, it was like waiting for death and not knowing what went on behind the scenes to influence the decision one way or the other. Still, it would be best to put on a brave face.

‘Inspector, I must thank you for what you did for me the other day.'

St-Cyr raised both hands in a gesture of Hold it, my friend. Enough said.

There were two customers in the shop, plus the woman who helped when the thrice-weekly bread ration was to be distributed.

‘Georges, a few small matters. Little details. Nothing important. We've all but wrapped the thing up and are just tidying.'

‘Mademoiselle Rose-Eva, did you hear that?' shouted the bearer of glad tidings. ‘No more rapists or sadists in the rue Polonceau. You and your sister can breathe a little easier.'

They were both in their eighties, timid, frail bits of dust with black biscuit hats, black shawls and coats, black everything.

The woman who had been handing them their ration of bread repeated the news in an equally loud voice, then warned them of theft. ‘You must guard your bread with your lives this time. We cannot give you any more if it's stolen again.'

‘Give? Who gives?' shrilled the older of the two.

‘He did it. We both know he did. He undressed her and then he violated her.'

‘Jeanne, shut up! Madame, you owe us bread for last week. I'm not leaving until we get it!'

‘He split her hymen even as he strangled her. It's the God's truth. I have heard this straight from the horse's mouth!'

The younger one hastily crossed herself before wetting her thin lips in expectation of some further development.

Lagace heaved a sigh. ‘Come into the back, Inspector. It'll be quieter there.'

‘No … no, a moment, Georges. Mesdemoiselles, who was the killer of that girl?' he shouted.

‘Killer? Killer? He wants to know who the rapist was, Rose-Eva.'

‘The rapist, yes. The killer. He's a detective, Jeanne. Let him find out for himself. Let him “tidy” his own little details since they have not yet arrested the villain.'

‘Who?' asked the detective.

‘Who do you think?' demanded the older of the two hotheads.

Snatching their thin stick of bread, the sisters headed for the door.

‘Later, Inspector. Later. Please, I can explain. Those two, they've been talking about that sort of thing for years. The younger one reads the papers and dreams of it; the older one rejoices at the trouble the dreams are causing the younger one. It's nothing but the air of two old women whose moment has long passed.'

A poet, eh?

They went into the heart of the bakery where empty cutting and pastry tables gave the lie of commerce and cold ovens that of plenty.

‘Two sacks of flour arrived today. Some salt and sugar. I can't understand it, Inspector. A Wehrmacht truck? An order for six hundred loaves of bread to be delivered to the local barracks of the German Army on Monday morning at 0600 hours.'

St-Cyr told him not to worry. ‘You've just earned yourself a job courtesy of Sturmbannführer Walter Boemelburg.'

Lagace's face fell. ‘The one who came to choose the hostages.'

‘It's his little joke on me. Don't worry. I told him you had the job and he just made certain that you did.'

‘But it will take at least another sack of flour and the gas to heat the ovens?'

So much for a baker's sense of humour. There were two chairs pulled up to the front of one of the ovens. He seemed turned to stone. ‘I knew it was too good to be true. Now they'll come for me and that will be the end of it.'

Had he no thoughts for Marianne St-Jacques, his girlfriend?

‘What is it that you want of me, Inspector?'

‘Merely your silence.'

‘My silence?' Ah Mon Dieu, the grave! The one from the Gestapo had left the Sûreté to give the
coup de grâce!

‘First, the villa at Number twenty-three.'

‘That place?' he shrilled.

St-Cyr nodded. ‘Tell me about it.'

‘There's nothing to tell. No one comes and no one goes. It must be leased to the Boches – ah, excuse me, Inspector. Those two old ladies, they've got me rattled. The Germans. The Nazis.'

‘Was there a housekeeper?'

‘Madame Gilbert, a widow. She was one of the hostages taken to the Cherche-Midi. We have only found this out last night, quite late.'

St-Cyr said ‘I see,' but wondered, After curfew? The Resistance, eh? and wanted to add, You should not have been so careless, idiot!

Boemelburg could not have known of the housekeeper but, then, Walter hadn't chosen all of the hostages himself. She could have been taken away on purpose.

‘Anything else?' he asked.

There'd be more and more questions now. Lies would have to pile upon lies. ‘Occasionally there are guests but myself, I have never seen anyone go into or out of that place in years.'

‘What sort of guests?'

‘Germans. Who else?'

Hermann would find out the rest. ‘How's Marianne bearing up?'

‘Fine. She's fine. I've told her not to come near here until … until things have cooled down.'

You're a damned fool, he wanted so much to say but knew he couldn't. ‘She'll be expecting a visit from me, will she?'

‘Yes, yes, she'll be expecting that.'

‘You must have talked to Madame Gilbert several times, Georges. Surely the villa at Number twenty-three would have come up in your conversations?'

‘Never. That one knows her duty is to the hand that pays her.'

Fair enough. ‘Now tell me about the two sisters. Who did they think might have killed that girl?'

‘Captain Dupuis. The one who has lost a leg.'

‘Why him?'

‘How should I know? Inspector –'

‘Yes, yes, I know you have six hundred sticks of bread to bake. Good luck. I'll be in touch.'

‘I still meant the thanks I said when you first came into the shop, only now I'm not so sure it was such a good idea for you to have saved me.'

‘Don't worry. Just do as the Gestapo Chief has asked and keep the army happy. They'll love your bread and soon you'll be able to skim off a little to augment everyone else's rations. Sturmbannführer Boemelburg will know I have suggested this but do it anyway.'

Both old ladies were still on the street. The younger one clutched the arm of the older one. The bread was gripped between them and both had canes no one would dare to argue with.

The sitting-room was small and from another time, with faded wine-red velvet, yellowed lace and flowered chintzes that spoke not just of passing fancy but of missed careers, failed attempts and partial successes.

Four cat baskets lay about: one on the floor by the end of the plush but faded blue sofa, another on the carpet in front of the tiny stove, a third up by a vase of dried asters in the curtained window, the last under a chair.

There was only one cat, and this was asleep in the middle of the sofa. But had there once been four cats or had that cat but four places in which to sleep? And if the former, which of the sisters had killed the others and hidden the truth? One could not afford to keep four cats these days – four roasts, four nourishing stews that could, if stretched, last at least three days apiece.

St-Cyr decided it would have to have been the older sister, Rose-Eva, who took care of such things. The younger one was too delicate, too timid. That one had been the orchestra tor of the chintzes. The room bore the stamp of a spark caught in mid-flight on a cool summer's evening some fifty or sixty years ago.

He accepted the tiny glass of ‘juice', a loganberry cordial perhaps, but set it aside out of politeness as one would and should. The French didn't readily invite people into their homes – the Sâreté had special privileges they could invoke and did – but always, as with all others, there was this formal offering of the ‘juice'.

One seldom drank it and when one did, the regrets inevitably followed.

‘Mademoiselle Rose-Eva Gagnon, permit me, please, to ask again who you and your sister think is the killer of that girl and why you feel so certain of this?'

‘If you'd been doing your job …'

‘Mademoiselle, I assure you I am and was, but I make no apologies for the overwork, the lack of sleep and the pitifully low wages.'

She tossed her head but was too polite to think or say, Suck lemons! monsieur. ‘We told them. We pleaded with them, but they would not listen.'

‘He'd done it before, you see,' offered the quiet meekness of the younger sister, sitting bolt upright to one side of the cat while her sister sat on the other side of it.

Was she protecting the cat, that last vestige of sensibility, from the older sister?

‘Who had “done it before”?' he asked politely.

‘The Captain, the man without the leg.'

‘Captain Alphonse Dupuis,' whispered the younger sister. ‘Me, I have had the …'

‘Jeanne, that is enough! Don't start again.'

Chastized, the younger sister timidly reached out to the cat only to withdraw her trembling hand, knowing the gesture would bring rebuke.

‘What my sister wishes to say, Inspector, is that on the evening of the day before the Defeat, there was a similar murder in our
quartier.
A young girl – Jeanne, stop it immediately, do you hear?'

The cat slept on as the hand desperately stole its way across the blue velvet of the cushion in spite of the warning.

Rose-Eva sensed the need in her young sister and, in a rare moment of resigned weakness, said, ‘Oh it's all right. Go on, you silly thing. Take Muffti into your lap. Just
don't
become too attached to him.'