Mannequin (32 page)

‘He has jet-black hair.'

The Sûreté's nod was grim. ‘Mademoiselle de Brisson made a list of all the works her boss put up for sale.'

‘It didn't take Denise a moment to figure out who the forged papers were for and to put that together with the scattered photographs. She knows Marie-Claire intends to pin it all on them.'

‘On her body, Hermann. Unless I am very mistaken, Mademoiselle de Brisson plans to leave the evidence on her when she kills herself in Dijon.'

‘Or here, Louis.
Here.
They'll try to stop her. They'll have to. She'll be aware of this.'

‘Kempf will leave Denise with Goering.'

‘Marie-Claire will head for her flat and then …'

‘Either try to hide until the train tomorrow or try to kill herself.'

Unfortunately, the place de la Concorde was jammed with parked cars,
vélo-taxis,
horse-drawn carriages and
gazogènes,
and so was the rue de Rivoli. Unfortunately, the Citroën was lost among them and Hermann, still badly shaken, couldn't quite remember where he had left it. Unfortunately, the rain had changed its mind and now fell as half-frozen pellets of ice to make the pavements worse than sheets of glass.

When they reached the house of the banker on the rue de Montpensier, the front door was ajar, the lights off, the only sound that of the pellets as they hit the street behind them. Thousands of them. Some fully frozen, others not. Some bouncing to roll about beneath a distant blue lamp, the only one in the street, others simply breaking.

‘You first or me?' whispered Hermann breathlessly.

From somewhere came the sound of an accelerating car and then that of the skid and crash. ‘Me,
mon vieux.
It was always my affair.'

‘Piss off. I'm better at this than you. Count to thirty and then follow. Work to the right.'

St-Cyr held his breath. The pellets hit the barrel of the gun he clutched. They hit his head and shoulders, the back of his hands, filling the air with their sound and the chill they brought.

At last he could stand the waiting no longer and stepped into the house. It would all be for Joanne and Dédé. Yes, Dédé would have to be told of it. Every last little thing. The smell of the freezing rain, its sound, the depth of darkness, the faint odour of cognac and whisky, was it whisky?

The smell of blood, of death, of powder, black powder—yes, certainly, an old Lebel 1873 just like the one in his hand and the one that had killed Gaetan Vergès and the bank teller.

The sharpness of sulphur, saltpetre and burnt charcoal but faint, so faint … a window open or a door … a door upstairs.

9

T
RY AS HE DID, KOHLER COULD RECALL LITTLE OF
the salon de Brisson. He took a step and then another—would go right around the room if necessary. Lamps, tables, chairs, vases of silk flowers, paintings on the walls … Where were the bastards? Chasing Mademoiselle de Brisson out on the balcony, driving her to that empty house whose doors would be locked unless … A key, of course. She must have had one of her own. How else could she have scattered the photographs without the others knowing?

Crouching, he waited. Feeling the carpet wet but only in little places, he followed these places out across the floor until his fingers touched hair.

Louis …? he began. Louis, ah
Gott im Himmel.

Holding back the urge to throw up, Kohler felt the face, the open eyes and broken glasses. Blood trickled from parted lips. The bullet had smashed the nose.

He found the cushion that had been used. He found Madame de Brisson's purse, its contents so scattered a careless step would have broken a pencil or compact mirror. This made him realize her body had been moved. It made him cringe and hesitate as he wiped his fingers on her sweater and tried to clean them as best he could.

Louis would have gone on ahead of him. Louis … Where was Kempf sitting—waiting … waiting for them to turn on a light! Yes, yes!

Ah
merde,
thought St-Cyr. Hermann must have gone upstairs.

The surface beneath his fingers was lacquered, and when he explored a little further, he found it must be a grand piano—pianos always had a smell to them. Dusty, of felt pads and wire, of ivory and ebony keys … Was someone sitting on the bench?

His heart racing, St-Cyr held his breath. Seldom was darkness so absolute one could not distinguish degrees of change and pick out shapes …

The piano was near a corner of the room, next to the windows. It was near the fireplace, too. He could smell damp coal ashes. The fire hadn't been lighted in days, the furnace was on, the radiators were warm …

Yes, there was someone sitting on the bench, waiting. Having sent le Blanc after Marie-Claire, had the Sonderführer returned to the salon to trap them?

Edging closer, he tried to better define the shape before him. Was it de Brisson hunched over the keys? The top of the piano was up and braced, the music stand would have to be down so as to allow the freedom to fire across the room.

For perhaps ten seconds, St-Cyr waited. Raising the revolver, he began to ease the hammer back completely, having already had it on the half-cock. The figure moved. The figure vanished. One moment it was there, the next …

He stepped back, felt himself come up against the wall. Hermann … where was Hermann?

The sound of the freezing rain came to him, the feel of a draught from an open window or door, the stirring of ashes in the grate …

Kohler fired twice. Someone fired back. Glass shattered. Marble shattered. That someone ran, hit something, stumbled and fell, got up, fired again and again, then ran out of the room and up the stairs.

‘Louis … Louis, are you okay?' whispered Kohler urgently.

‘Perhaps!' came the hiss.

‘Those stairs he took only go up to the second floor.'

‘Was it de Brisson?'

‘The banker …? I … I don't know. Is he in so deep there's no other way out for him?'

‘Perhaps he'll tell us, perhaps he won't.'

‘It was Kempf,' breathed Kohler. ‘I'm certain of it.'

‘Then where is de Brisson?'

‘Take the back stairs up to the attic, Louis. Leave this one to me. Check it out and wait for me. The stairs are off the kitchen.'

‘And what if he gets past you and comes back down again?'

‘He won't.'

‘Then what if he fires down the stairwell as you are on your way up?'

‘He won't because he'll hear you go up the other stairs.'

Kohler waited, and when he heard Louis start up the other stairs, he swore and called himself an idiot. Le Blanc could just as easily have come back from that balcony and be waiting at the top of them and if not him, then de Brisson.

St-Cyr was grim. The back stairs were steep and narrow. Up the right side, there was a railing and it was along this that he slid his gun. Nothing could be seen. It was far too dark. No shape, no degree of change. Each step was first felt and then … then the weight gradually increased until … yes, it could be done and another taken.

When he reached a point perhaps one-third of the way up, he wondered if he should not retreat. The draught, always cold, seemed to have increased. Had the door at the head of the stairs not opened a little? Could he not hear the freezing rain more clearly?

He took another step only to feel the boards sag. Crouching, he waited. The door at the top moved. The draught increased. There was a rush, a …

Aiming up the staircase, he waited.

The rush came down the stairs and when it reached him, it meowed and rubbed itself against his leg. ‘Ah
nom de Jésus-Christ!
' he whispered.

Reaching down, he felt the thing and ran his swollen hand over its back, then rubbed it behind the ears and let it rub its face in his hand.

Its whiskers were wet. The fur under its chin was wet and sticky. It was not water, not milk—even with the almost total absence of milk from a city of 2,500,000, in houses such as this, it would have been common enough for the cat.

‘It's blood,' he breathed. Marie-Claire de Brisson's? he asked and started up the stairs once more, leaving the cat to seek its mistress.

Once in the attic
pied-à-terre,
the darkness was less. A set of french windows to the balcony was wide open and the night sky, with the falling sleet, was of a still lighter darkness.

The sound of the ice pellets filled the flat as they hit the floor nearest the window. Quickly he crossed the small sitting-room and sought the deeper darkness of the opposite wall. He waited, listened—tried to shut out the sound of the ice.

A corridor led to the bedrooms. There were framed pictures on the walls—photographs, Hermann had said. Sweet things, pretty things, not of death and gunshots and bastards like Kempf and le Blanc or of girls like Joanne whose bodies had been left for others to find and deal with.

There was nobody in the smaller of the bedrooms, not that he could be certain without a light, but in the larger of them, the carpet was wet.

De Brisson must have come upstairs to find his daughter throwing things into a small suitcase—it was still open on the bed. Some underwear … a toothbrush … a bottle of pills, a straight razor, a diary …

The banker lay face down on the carpet and it was clear that the muzzle of the gun had been jammed against the back of his head. One shot.

Mademoiselle de Brisson must have somehow used that second to escape onto the balcony.

The hammering of the ice pellets swept back in on him and he heard them pinging off each other, the windows and the floor. Now a blast, now a lessening.

Le Blanc, he said. Le Blanc has gone after her. Should I follow? Isn't this what they want? Le Blanc will have heard the shots.

St-Cyr went back to the head of the stairs to look down them and raise his gun. Kempf, he said to himself. Kempf will have to come up them.

Or will he? And if not Kempf, then Hermann who would do it so silently no one, not even his partner, would know he was there until he had reached the top and said so.

Withdrawing, he waited as Kempf had waited for them, never taking his eyes from the top of the stairs but thinking of Mademoiselle de Brisson who knew everything and could tell others what had happened.

The scattering of the photographs in an empty, empty house, the purchasing of forged papers for men who had known absolutely nothing of them.

The room was empty, the house was empty and they were going to kill her …
kill her!

Clasping a hand tightly over her mouth to stop herself from crying out, Marie-Claire de Brisson huddled on the floor against the wall. They would grab her by the hair, they would throw her down and jam a gun against her head. She would try to get away, would plead with them. Michel would pin her legs. Franz would kneel on her back … her back … Bang!

She wept. She couldn't stop herself from shaking. Her father—that bastard who had come up the stairs for her so many times—was now dead.
Dead!

No more would he come for her.

A shape, a silhouette, appeared on the other side of the tall french doors that opened onto the balcony. Suddenly this shape threw out its hands to stop itself from slipping. Michel … was it Michel? He banged against the glass and fought to right himself.

She huddled. She got ready to run. He shook the door handle and tried to force it. She waited. She dropped the hand that had covered her mouth. ‘Michel … It
is
Michel,' she said.

He broke the glass, showering it into the room. She screamed and ran, banged into a door frame, went down a corridor in darkness, darkness … tried to catch a breath, dragged it in … in. The stairs … she must find the stairs.

Le Blanc threw himself into the corridor. She grabbed the railing and raced down the stairs with him after her … after her … Fell … fell … shrieked,
‘No! No!
' dragged in a breath and hit the stairs, tumbling down them.

He fired once. Plaster dust flew into her face.
‘No! No!
' she shrieked again and rolled away until she hit another wall and could go no farther.

‘Michel …' she managed, dragging herself up. ‘Michel … don't do it, please.'

There was no answer. In all that house there were only the silent cries of girls who once had been so full of hope, her own ragged breathing, the ache in her chest and outside on the balcony, why, only the sound of the sleet as it hit the windows.

‘Michel …' She swallowed hard. ‘Let me go. I won't tell them anything. I promise.'

How contemptible of her to beg.

Still he didn't answer and when, having hesitantly pulled herself up on to her feet, she stood with her back to the wall, the touch of the plaster was dry and rough beneath her hand, and the waiting was cruel.

Somehow she had reached one of the bedrooms on the second floor. There must be a short bit of corridor and then the staircase. She had pulled herself into a ball as she had rolled away but had no memory of having done so.

Windows overlooked the rue de Valois but these were not nearly so tall as those either upstairs or downstairs.

‘Michel … I … I haven't told them anything. I … I have the travel papers and other documents I had made for you and Franz. They're … they're sewn into the lining of my coat. I couldn't carry them in my purse, could I? The controls, the checkpoints, the Gestapo searches … Here … here, I can rip them free for you.'

Her fingers shook so much she couldn't do it. A button flew off, another fell … Both hit the floor and rolled away, and she heard the sound of them against that of the sleet striking the windows.

Trembling, she tried to find the exact place where the papers were. The left side of the hem … Here … here, she said to herself and, pulling it up to grasp it in her teeth, yanked hard and …

He was standing in the doorway. She could barely make him out through the darkness. Had he raised the gun, was he about to kill her?