Mannequin (20 page)

‘Hermann,
please!
A few simple questions.'

André-Philippe de Brisson was in his early sixties. The immaculately tailored grey suit with dark blue tie and handkerchief went with the image. The dark blue eyes which, from behind gold-rimmed spectacles, returned his gaze were those of a banker about to dismiss a dishonest employee.

‘Monsieur,' began St-Cyr.

The knife and fork were at last carefully set down on his plate. ‘Inspector, what is the meaning of this? You have no right.'

A tough one. ‘Monsieur, eighteen millions have been stolen from your bank and a teller killed. Surely it is in your interest to co-operate a little?'

‘Here?'

Still handsome, suave—eminently successful and master of all that was around him—de Brisson appeared to be a man of little patience and much arrogance. ‘Here, there, what does it matter,' said St-Cyr, ‘so long as the money is recovered and the criminals apprehended?'

‘Then contact me at my office. I will have them roll out the carpet of welcome.'

Was he a friend of the préfet and of Pharand, the boss of this humble servant of justice? Probably. Ah yes. A self-conscious grin and a little shrug of apology would therefore suit. ‘Unfortunately time does not allow us the luxury of polite custom. The Sturmbannführer Boemelburg wishes my partner and me to settle the matter as expeditiously as possible.'

‘Boemelburg. Ah very well, you may proceed.'

The closely shaven, rounded cheeks would smell but faintly of an aftershave. The puffiness beneath the eyes suggested late nights and too much work, the receding hairline a vanity that regretted such a loss. ‘The shipment from your head office, monsieur. Is it customary for such large sums to be transferred to Paris?'

Though the one from the Sûreté concentrated almost totally on him, the one from the Gestapo kept looking from Marie-Claire to Bérénice.
Maudit salauds,
what were the two of them really after? ‘The German authorities, Inspector. They wish us to put the notes back into circulation as soon as possible so as to save on the printing costs and paper. Once every two months Lyon ship to us. Oh
bien sûr,
it was nothing new. Merely routine.'

‘Eighteen million?'

‘In October seven million. In August only four.'

‘But always on the 24th of the month?' asked Louis still meeting the steely gaze of the banker.

‘Unless it's a Sunday or a Wednesday, the half-holiday. In which case, the next working day. Inspector, what is it you wish me to say? That someone outside of my immediate staff had learned of the shipment and been so indiscreet as to let someone else know of the matter?'

‘Could that have been possible?'

‘Never!'

‘Then could your teller have recognized one of the two men from a previous visit?'

The cheeks were blown out in exasperation. Immediately the face came alive with the preposterousness of such a thing. ‘Ah no, no, of course not! Monsieur Ouellet, he had merely reached for the alarm button which was just beneath the counter and to the right of his cash drawer. A brave man—he'll get a citation for sure—very conscientious and due for a promotion to head teller as soon as the post came free. Isn't that correct, my dear?' he asked the wife, disturbing at once her stony gaze and silence, and awakening the downcast eyes of the daughter, their little mouse.

‘Yes, of course, my dear. You are correct,' said the woman.

As always? wondered St-Cyr. How could such a positive-looking woman have stood for the continued sexual abuse of her daughter? A fine-looking woman but one who, in the company of her husband, was so used to taking a back seat, she couldn't force herself to rise above it.

‘It's sad,' went on the banker.
‘Ma chère,
you must come with me when I visit with his wife and children. Perhaps a hamper? A few little things …? Inspector, you see how it is. At the Crédit, the employees really count. My wife and I were very fond of Monsieur Ouellet.'

‘Certainly.' But why lie about it, wondered St-Cyr, if not to hide something else? ‘The suitcases, monsieur. Why suitcases? Why not banker's dispatch cases?'

‘Why, indeed, Inspector? Ask Lyon, don't ask me. Maybe all the cases were in use.'

‘Had they ever used those suitcases before?'

‘No. No, of course not but there is always a first time, is that not correct?'

‘Louis Vuitton and alligator leather, monsieur? Their choice was admirable to say the least and very handy for the thieves, but what I can't understand is why those two men discarded them?'

‘Then why not ask
them,
Inspector? Maybe they can tell you.'

Patiently Kohler watched the proceedings, still wondering if Louis would confront the banker with the statements of Madame Lemaire's little maid and the daughter's ‘Letters to Myself'. Mademoiselle de Brisson obviously feared the worst, though she could only know of his own visit to her flat, not what they had discovered.

The golden mohair dress fitted Marie-Claire like a glove, even to hiding the razor marks on her wrists. The green eyes that still looked down at her plate held nothing but despair. Was she knitting her fingers in her lap? he wondered. Was she swearing to kill herself and not botch the job this time?

‘Those two men were nothing but gangsters,' said the father. ‘Nothing but rubbish, Inspectors! The
dregs
of a society that, if given half a chance under our German friends, will shape up, eh? They had no reason to kill Adrian. He was such a kind man and so good with his children. There are six, or is it seven? Ah, I can never remember. It was always a little joke between us.'

‘Of course,' said the Sûreté who had taken to studying Madame de Brisson. ‘There was a woman in the street, monsieur?'

Madame de Brisson!
sighed Kohler inwardly, and the banker setting up the robbery of his own fucking bank and having the wife play look-out even though she was a bit too old for the part, or was she?

‘Talk. Nothing but talk.' The banker shrugged and tossed his hands and head. ‘You know how it is, Inspector. One witness says this, another says something else—ah! it was all over in a few seconds. The gun, the demand, the cash, the shot, the car and zoom, those bastards were gone!'

It would be tiresome to again say Of course, thought St-Cyr. The urge to do so was almost overpowering, but one must go carefully. The age of the woman in the street had been put at between thirty and thirty-six years. Then why, please, he asked himself, was Madame de Brisson sweltering? Was she about to choke on a fishbone even though her trout had not been touched since their arrival?

De Brisson didn't like the silence. ‘There was a young girl who window-shopped, Inspector. Eighteen perhaps. Yes, that was the age. Another supposedly stood watching this girl and the street. The woman who reported this to the police could give few details except to say that the girl at the window was aware of the one who watched.'

Gravely Louis tidied the table-cloth in front of himself though it needed none. He looked away across the restaurant, seemed bent on deciding the best course of action. All around them the diners went about their business. The place had now settled down and would take little notice of them until they left.

‘Mademoiselle de Brisson, is there anything you can add that might be of help? I know you were not a witness, but … ah, some little thing perhaps? One of your girls taking too close an interest in the car your employer borrows from time to time? Perhaps someone saw something out front? A window-shopper like this … this … How old did you say she was, monsieur?'

‘Eighteen.'

It was such a fiercely perturbed answer. ‘Eighteen,' acknowledged the Sûreté gruffly. ‘Repeated visits, mademoiselle, so as to case the bank of your father?'

‘Inspector, it was a simple hold-up,' breathed de Brisson impatiently.

‘Not with eighteen million, monsieur. No, it was an operation that involved meticulous planning. Of this my partner and I are certain. So, mademoiselle, have you anything to say? Did anyone notice this girl looking in the window of your shop?'

What did he really know? she wondered harshly. The Meuniers were dead—
dead!
The Gestapo had shot them before … before Paul could … could say a thing. A thing! These two could know nothing of the papers. Nothing! ‘We get thousands looking in our window each day, Inspector. Sometimes it is only a glance in passing, sometimes a searching for hours on end as the mind, it fantasizes.'

‘The girl, mademoiselle, had long brown hair—was it brown, Hermann? Is that what the préfet said?'

‘Dark brown, Louis, and brown eyes, I think.'

‘One of so many, Inspector,' said Madame de Brisson tightly. ‘It can mean nothing. Absolutely nothing.'

‘Or everything, madame,' said the Sûreté with that little shrug Kohler knew so well. ‘You have a cat, madame?'

‘A cat? Why … why, yes.'

And now you look as if you had just swallowed your canary. Again he would gravely tidy the table-cloth and pass smoothing fingers across it waiting always for the silence to do its work.

‘My cat, Inspector? What … what has Samson to do with the robbery?'

Moisture had collected around the stern blue eyes behind their glasses. Guilt, fear—the horror of what she had done—was it this that made her tremble? ‘Your trout, madame. I greatly fear my partner and I have spoiled your supper but, as you have a cat, well …'

He left it unsaid. ‘Hermann,
mon vieux,
we have work to do. Monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, please forgive the intrusion.
Merci.
'

Outside on the rue de Beaujolais Kohler exploded. ‘You had me believing you were going to slam that bastard against a wall and cut off his balls before confronting the daughter with the forged papers!'

‘Ah, no, Hermann. It's best, is it not, to add the spices only at the moment of tenderness so that the bouillon becomes the sauce when quickly thickened and allowed to simmer but for a little while?'

‘Hey, for a moment there you had me worried.'

*  *  *

‘Dédé, ah
mon Dieu,
what are you doing on my doorstep at such an hour?'

Wrapped in a blanket, the boy stood up and shook the snow from himself.
‘Grand-mère,
she is saying she has had a vision in the night of Joanne, Inspector. Naked, ravaged and with … with her … her breasts cut off.'

‘Ah damn that old woman! Come in. Quickly. Light the stove. Here … here take this thermos. My partner knows another Bavarian who has a restaurant. It's a little soup, Dédé. Ham and lentils with red kidney beans. There's a handful of croutons in my overcoat pocket. See that you restore the body's temperature, eh? while I find a little something from my days as a soldier. Be sure to use the bread. Mop up the dregs. Keep nothing. I'm not hungry.'

The boy would do as he was told but was there no way to shut that old woman up? The breasts … How
could
she have said a thing like that to the family?

Down in a cellar too dark and dank for comfort even though it was his own, he moved a wine barrel, one of several from the days when he had once tried to make his own wine, and found beneath it yet another barrel.

Moving it, he got down on his hands and knees with his pocket-knife and prised out a stone in the floor. The revolver in the tin box, a Lebel Model 1873, was just as he had left it on the day of the Defeat. Well-greased, in its holster and with two boxes of cartridges.

The gun was heavy—indeed, it was almost as effective as a club. Though some had been modified to eight millimetre, this one still used the eleven millimetre, black-powder, low-pressure cartridges that were slightly less in calibre than the .455-inch cartridges of the British Mark IV Webley.

Hermann wouldn't expect him to be armed and would probably find something, yet this could not be guaranteed in time and the sacrifice would have to be made.

Returning the army holster and one box of cartridges to their hiding place, he went back upstairs. The boy must have been ravenous. The bowl was clean, the thermos dry. Not a crumb of bread remained. Dédé saw the gun in his hand and couldn't take his eyes from it. What could he let him tell the other boys? ‘It looks like the police revolver I lost in Lyon, Dédé, the same as the gun that was used in the robbery. But this one … It's not quite thirty years since I had to use it in that other war. Please, it's a private matter between us, eh? Just you and me. No others.'

‘Is it that you know where Joanne is?'

‘Ah, I wish that were so. We've made great progress, but must now visit a place of flowers.'

‘A cemetery?'

‘Ah, no. No. Beautiful blue flowers. Lupins perhaps or violets, but in spring.'

‘And the robbery?' asked the boy. ‘Is it that Joanne has perhaps seen something and this is why she was kidnapped?'

Would it hurt to lie a little so as to give hope? Though he wanted to, he told himself he would have to be honest. ‘We simply don't know yet. But the robbery and the kidnapping are connected. I'm almost certain of it.'

‘Then you have a suspect?'

‘More than one.'

‘Male or female?'

‘Both.'

The gun, the man, the detective stood before him across the table. How many times had he and the other boys seen the Chief Inspector trudging home to an empty house and a wife who slept elsewhere with another, a German officer? How many times had they kicked the soccer ball to him only to find he had stumbled and fallen asleep from exhaustion to look like a drunkard lying on the pavement?

He had lost his car, his great big beautiful black Citroën to a Boche, a Bavarian. His bicycle—his precious Sûreté
vélo
with the five kilos of brass for a lock—had been smashed on a case and then stolen. Yes,
stolen.
A smashed bicycle!