Mannequin (35 page)

Fillet of beef Dukes of Bourbon, grumbled Kohler inwardly, thinking of Stalingrad and his two sons, and of Giselle and Oona making do with so little. Potato cream pancakes, cauliflower mousse, leeks of Savoy and …
‘Salmis de Palombe,
Louis?'

‘Wild dove in a sauce of red wine. It's a dish from the Pyrenees. Goering is eating his way through the country like a savage eats the heart and kidneys and unmentionables of a vanquished enemy!'

Grimly Kohler reminded him that it had been Goering who had issued the decree of 26 April 1933 bringing into being the Gestapo and letting them have a branch in every part of the Reich. Goering …

St-Cyr's nod was curt. ‘Please cover the dining-room exits. Let me find myself a vantage point. Let me see her before she sees us so that I can tell Dédé exactly how her downfall was.'

Once the playground of the rich and famous, the Ritz was now used exclusively by the Wehrmacht. Visiting generals and other high-ranking officers came and went as if stiff, fleet harbingers of an uncertain future. Gravely subdued, they were overly polite to one another. Ignoring as best they could the racket from the main dining-room and the Luftwaffe security types who seemed to be everywhere, these ‘guests' ducked discreetly into the lounge bar for a quiet drink and to listen to its chanteuse struggle valiantly against the din, or slipped outside to dissociate themselves completely from the Reichsmarschall.

Kohler knew they were embarrassed by the great one's presence and sensed in them his same fears that it was now only a matter of time until the Third Reich collapsed in disarray.

Louis went up the main staircase, that grand, sweeping curve of crimson and black Savonnerie carpet, the black wrought iron of its remarkable balustrade but bars to the Sûreté who, when he stood in front of a hanging tapestry like no other, looked tough and determined, yet sad.

Committed, he didn't turn to look back. He paused to let three U-boat captains descend and then he went on up to the first floor to disappear beyond the brass railing of the balustrade. No king, no general, just a cop on business.

Kohler moved away. Two of Goering's boys followed him and he had to wonder why they hadn't interfered and thrown Louis and him out of the hotel.

But they hadn't done so, and that, too, was a worry.

St-Cyr was troubled. The Luftwaffe security men were leaving them alone. As he walked along a corridor King Edward VII of England must have used, he understood he was being watched but allowed to come and go as he pleased.

Had Goering put in a call to Boemelburg? Had the Sturmbannführer filled the Reichsmarschall in on things?

It was a problem he and Hermann didn't need, for one couldn't soak up the essence of these last few moments and ferret out the truth when one had to always worry about one's back.

Twice he thought of turning and telling them to bugger off. Twice he told himself, They'll only say I have no jurisdiction here.

Yet they were allowing him to proceed.

Built in 1698, and once the Due de Lauzun's town house, the Ritz had only forty-five guest rooms including its famous Imperial Suite. Not large, quite modest, its success had lain completely in catering exclusively to wealth and fame.

The dining-room was sumptuous, the cuisine always legendary. Beneath glittering chandeliers, amid the din of laughter, loud shouts and much talk, an army of waiters in dinner-jackets moved with precision while a chamber orchestra competed ineffectually against the racket with a sonata from … Beethoven? Was it Beethoven?

Two hundred were seated at one long table, others at island tables. Crowded … the place was packed!

And in the centre of it all sat the Reichsmarschall, gargantuan, florid, resplendent in his white uniform with all his medals. The Iron Cross First Class, the Lion of Zähringen with swords, the Karl Friedrich Order, the Hohenzollern Order Third Class with swords, the Orden Pour le Mérite—the Blue Max—and with the Grosskreux, the Large Iron Cross Hitler had revived especially for him, at the neck. Folds of flesh, short, curly, wavy hair and hands that pawed as he fed himself.

Flushed with success, Goering ate, drank, drew on his cigar and let his eyes dance over the crowd. Beautiful young women and girls in beautiful dresses and jewels, handsome young men in uniform—Luftwaffe blue, Kriegsmarine blue, Wehrmacht and SS grey and SS black, ah yes. Suits too: art dealers, buyers and sellers. Men on the make, girls on the make. Food in a powder-blue silk lap, wine down a generous bosom as a joke to exclamations of despair that fought to rise above the din but failed.

A broken glass, a shattered plate—the wealthy, the
nouveaux riches,
the
demi-mondes
of Paris toasted the Reichsmarschall's phenomenal luck and drank deeply.

Isolated, cut off, alone and subdued, Denise St. Onge sat six places from the Reichsmarschall across the table, and every time his gaze fell on her and he drank her health, she shuddered.

She looked so tiny in her black silk dress with its spaghetti straps. She hardly touched the breast of chicken that was in front of her and when the fillet of beef Dukes of Bourbon came, she shook her head.

St-Cyr watched her closely from one of the private balcony dining-rooms, letting the cameras of his mind record her every anxiety, for she must by now have realized that the Sonderführer and Michel le Blanc wouldn't return.

And Goering knew it too, which could only mean Boemelburg really had been contacted and had sent someone to the shop to uncover the truth.

Ah
merde,
what were Hermann and he to do?

When the wild dove in red-wine sauce arrived, she picked at it and tried to eat, for Goering, dribbling dark sauce down the front of his nice white uniform, was devouring her.

At last she couldn't stand him looking at her any more and, colouring rapidly, leapt to her feet, knocking two of her wine glasses over.

Chablis stained the white table-cloth to mingle with a red flood of burgundy. The laughter and talk fled down the table to silence even the island tables around them.

‘Eat,' said Goering. ‘No one is to leave.'

‘I … I can't.'

‘Eat!
' he shrieked.

She put both her hands down hard on the table to brace herself. As everyone watched, she picked up a dove, letting the sauce splatter where it would, never once taking her eyes from the Reichsführer.

Sauce clung to her lips and cheeks, a tiny bone caught in her throat. Choking, she clutched her throat, winced, coughed, reached for bread … for anything and finally took a proffered glass of the red.

Then she stood there in defeat staring down at her greasy hands, wondering what was happening to her.

St-Cyr drew in a breath. His eyes glazing over as he fought the effects of alcohol and drugs, Goering roughly shoved plates and cutlery aside, wine glasses, too, and those of his neighbours which smashed on the floor until …

In bundle after bundle, the 18,000,000 francs were brought in and placed before him and she knew exactly what he was going to do to her.

The robbery passed before her eyes, the good times and the fun, the orgies with naked girls who couldn't count for anything and kept Franz amused while she … she knelt beneath them or …

‘Eat,' said Goering. ‘Let everyone see you eat'

*  *  *

What had made her do it? wondered St-Cyr. Spoiled as a child, greedy, ambitious, arrogant—ah so many things came to mind but still, could there ever be an adequate answer?

Handcuffed to the arms of a chair and still in her party dress, Denise St. Onge sat with head bowed before Walter Boemelburg. Dragged out of bed at 3:00 a.m., the Sturmbannführer scowled. Her voice was too faint. He had to ask her to speak up but still it remained faint. ‘At … at first I … I didn't stay in the house after the girls had … had removed their clothes. Franz would tell me to leave; Michel would … would give him the revolver and then … then come downstairs with me to make certain the door was locked. They … then they …'

‘A moment,' interjected St-Cyr with a lift of his pipe. ‘Where was the Sonderführer while the photographs were being taken by le Blanc?'

‘Franz..?' she asked, remembering so clearly the look in his eyes as they had searched each girl's nakedness.

Kohler gently reminded her that she had best answer. The corporal, here, has to take it all down so that you can sign it. Make things easy for him, eh? We're all tired.'

‘Franz … Franz usually waited upstairs in the attic rooms. He would hear us as I told each girl what to do. Which dress to wear, which blouse or slip. The make-up … It … it excited him to listen to us. I would then leave and …'

‘Go on,' said St-Cyr quiedy.

Still she couldn't bring herself to face them. ‘Then he and Michel would … would play with the girl.'

‘They raped them,' said Louis levelly.

‘Yes, several times. This and … and other things. I … I don't know how many times that first day. Maybe twice, maybe three times—enough to teach submissiveness. When …'

“When
what?
' demanded Boemelburg furiously.

Startled, she leapt and for a second, looked up but away and then down …

Again Kohler reminded her to answer and she did so. ‘When they tired of them, after a month, two months—what did it matter?—they killed them. I didn't ask if they'd done so. I … I assumed the girls would be let go. Honestly I did. You must believe me. You
must
!'

‘We don't,' breathed Kohler.

‘You knew they'd be killed,' said the one called St-Cyr.

‘All right, I knew!' she said bitterly.
‘Does that make you feel better?
'

The bitch! fumed Boemelburg. He'd had enough of her! ‘They couldn't have been allowed to live, not after what the three of you had done to them!'

Through her tears she looked at him and then at each of the detectives. They would never understand how it had all started or why she had become involved in such a thing.
Never!

When she was asked how it had begun, anger came to her and she shouted at them, ‘How does
anything
like that start? The war was
lost.
My brother Julien was dead.
Dead,
do you understand? My brother Martin was in a prisoner-of-war camp and I wanted him freed—yes,
freed
! Franz could do that for me. Franz …'

‘How patriotic of you,' snorted Boemelburg. ‘Louis, haven't we heard enough?'

‘Walter, please. She has to tell us everything.'

‘Franz … Franz came to see me when he arrived in Paris in the summer of 1940 and I …' She shrugged. ‘I saw my chance. We began to go out again. It was exciting. He was always lots of fun. He had a job, he had influence. I had none, but I knew him from before, from Berlin. He was a cousin. He was very handsome. We had …'

‘Slept together,' said Louis, ‘and did so again.'

‘But it wasn't enough,' breathed Kohler.

Ashen and trembling, she again lowered her eyes. She knew that no matter how long it took, they wouldn't stop until she had told them everything. ‘No. No, it wasn't enough. Not for him. He wanted to do something “different”, something “really exciting”. One night soon after the Defeat we were in Marie-Claire's flat when Marie asked him about houses whose owners hadn't come back. I think maybe she wanted a place for herself. I really don't know what made her ask such a question. Franz went to have a look. I stayed with her. It … it was then that she told me of the jewellery she had found for the shop and of the man who was her real father.'

Kohler filled the Chief in, offering a cigarette. ‘Tonnerre had been taking money from Madame de Brisson for years, threatening to tell her daughter he was the girl's father. Tonnerre had a key to the house. They …'

‘He never missed it,' she said bleakly, not looking up. ‘It was nothing to him. Not any more. Only memories of a mannequin he hated, the mother of the daughter he had never spoken to until the day Marie went to ask him about the jewellery. Even then they didn't speak of who her real parents were. Later, Franz and I gave him ether. We got him very drunk on it, very quickly—like lightning, isn't that so? We went through his place, finding first the key and then the negatives of his mannequin naked on a
chaise-longue,
naked and bent over a chair, a table … everything … everything done in that very house!'

‘Those negatives then gave you the idea for the advertisements and you worked out the schedule of photographs and put together the clothes each girl would be asked to wear,' said Louis, lost to the thing. ‘Always the same clothes, always the same poses because Tonnerre and Gaetan Vergès were the ones who were to be blamed for the crimes if discovered.' He drew on his pipe, had a sudden thought, asked, ‘When did Mademoiselle de Brisson tell you about her own abuse, mademoiselle? Monsieur de Brisson was …'

‘Fucking her? Is this what you think?' It was. ‘Oh
mon Dieu,
you are so wrong! Marie-Claire hadn't been touched by him since the age of fifteen!'

‘Yet she wrote of it every day,' sighed Louis, his pipe forgotten. ‘And you, mademoiselle? You let her feed on this fear. She was afraid you would tell others, so much so that she would never leave your employ no matter how good the offer.'

Her smile was twisted. ‘Monsieur de Brisson came to secretly watch us. He was so hungry, that one. He had such lust in his eyes. Franz caught him on the balcony looking through the gap we had deliberately left in the curtains for him. It was perfect.
Perfect!
Monsieur de Brisson the banker joined the party!'

‘Louis, I've heard enough,' grunted Boemelburg.

‘Walter, a moment, please.' St-Cyr turned to the prisoner who looked up beseechingly at him through her tears. ‘Were photographs taken of the banker with any of those girls?'