Tapestry (15 page)

‘What judge?’

Did this one not realize who he was about to arrest—was the judge to be arrested? wondered Valois.
Ah, merde,
the loss of the fares, the late nights and carting that one home well after curfew, but an end to the monster—was that it, eh? ‘
Monsieur le juge
Rouget.’

Oh-oh. ‘Judge of what?’

‘
Président du Tribunal spécial du département de la Seine
.’

Hercule the Smasher, the Widow Maker’s Companion, Vichy’s top judge and hatchet man in Paris. Not only did he preside over some of the trials of black-market violators and send the little guys, never the big boys, off to the Reich and into forced labour or to the Santé or Fresnes prisons, he presided over the night-action courts, those in which the ‘terrorists,’ as Vichy and the Occupier were wont to call them, were tried and convicted. The Résistance hated him and he was as stark a son of a bitch as Vichy could have found. Arrogant, Louis would have said in warning. Positive the police were incompetent and not doing enough. Quick to make up his mind and quicker still to take offence. Suspicious and with a mind that forgot nothing, even that this Kripo protected and cohabited with a Dutch alien whose dead husband was Jewish and whose papers weren’t good, but who also lived with a former prostitute who was far less than half his age!

Louis must have known who Denise Rouget’s father was but hadn’t said—had he really been too busy to think of it at the Drouant or even at Chez Rudi’s, or had he hoped and prayed it would simply go away and they wouldn’t have to deal with the bastard?

The judge was far from happy. Even from a foyer where oil paintings worth a fortune could easily have been snatched in a smash-and-grab, the hiss of his voice was clear from beyond closed doors.

What do you mean, ‘There’s a Gestapo detective asking to interview my daughter’
?

The reply from the maid of all work could not be heard, though Kohler strained to listen.

Denise, what is this, please?

Again nothing could be heard, even from the daughter.

How dare the
couillon
invade the sanctity of my home? I’ll show the
salaud
! Out of my way, Denise. Out, I tell you!

Papa …

Don’t you dare stand in my way!

The Roman statuettes and vase of white silk lilies on the Louis XVI gilded entry table vibrated. The carpet beneath leaking boots was a Savonnerie …

‘Inspector, how dare you come here like this without an appointment? I’m speaking to Karl Oberg about this. I’m speaking to Walter Boemelburg and to Ernst von Schaumburg. I will
not
have my privacy invaded!’

A tornado. ‘Kohler,
Monsieur le Juge.
Kripo, Paris-Central, here on orders from that very Kommandant von Gross-Paris.’

‘WHAT?’

‘You heard me, Judge. That daughter of yours arranged for two of last night’s victims to meet beforehand at the Café de la Paix. As far as I can determine she didn’t join them, but since she may well have been involved in what subsequently happened, there are things I need to ask her.’

‘Involved? That’s preposterous. What things?’

‘Things like, How did she know Madame Barrault was even familiar with the café, seeing as the woman hasn’t any money to spare and works the odd evening as an usherette?’

‘The slut should not be working. She’s a wife and mother with an eight-year-old daughter!’

‘Papa …’

‘Denise, did I
not
tell you to let me handle this?’

‘Your daughter’s their social worker, Judge.’

‘And are not all such matters held in the strictest confidence?’

Liebe Zeit
, was he going to have to threaten the bastard? ‘Look, it’s only routine.’

‘No, you look. The wives and fiancées of our prisoners of war are playing around like rabbits in heat. The one asks for a taxi driver she can trust to pick her up
after
lessons; the other dines at the Drouant with Monsieur and Madame Morel and at Morel’s insistence? The Opéra for one so poor? The Drouant? Both attacks have to suggest the obvious.’

‘Judge …’

‘Gaston Morel is known to take his mistresses where and when he can find them and they can’t give trouble even if he flaunts them in front of that wife of his, but if I must tell you this, the epidemic has become a plague. Our dear boys in the prisoner-of-war camps in the Reich, necessary as those are, do
not
have the pleasures of using their wives. Others do!’

‘
Papa,
your heart.’

‘Fuck my heart! Disappear. You are
not
to talk to this one!’

‘Then let me ring up Gestapo Boemelburg’s office, Judge. You’ve a telephone—men in positions such as yours have to have one, rare though they are. Let’s let the Gestapo’s Listeners know I’m here and wanting to question your daughter on a police matter.’

The
salaud
! ‘How dare you?’

‘You leave me no other choice.’

‘
Papa,
the fewer who know of my involvement, the better.’

‘Hercule, Hercule,’ interjected Madame Rouget. ‘Denise is right. Be your gracious self. I know you’ve had a very trying day and desperately need a rest. Brigitte, don’t stand there looking stupid. Take the inspector’s things and put them to dry in the kitchen by the stove then bring some coffee and cognac. The Vieille Reserve … no, no, the Louis XIII. The Rémy-Martin and the cigars. Yes, yes, those too. The El Rey del Mundo Choix Supreme.’

An angel, but that very cognac and those cigars had been encountered in Vichy but a week ago. The Maréchal Pétain himself had enjoyed that brand of cigar and still did but that could only mean the gossip was circulating and Madame Rouget would put it to good use if necessary, and had let him know.

Louis should have heard it.

Road Racer, Boot Saver, Comfort’s Partner, the
vélo-taxis
waited in the rain and darkness outside the Café de la Paix. The last of the charcoal smoke from the outdoor braziers brought faint thoughts of warmth and dryness that couldn’t be dwelt on. ‘A Tokarev,’ St-Cyr heard himself grimly mutter as he searched the darkness for the little light he needed. ‘A TT-33. There can only be one reason why this Sonja Remer could have had it in her handbag.’

Last Sunday the woman had taken a decided interest in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont’s carousel and had asked its operator about a certain two detectives and a murder there in December. She had had a clipping of Hermann’s advertisement in her handbag, must have been told of Oona and Giselle, would know of the home address, had kept the pistol loaded.

An assassin? he had to ask. A girl? A
Blitzmädel
they would never have suspected?

The boys had overheard her asking the carousel’s operator if Hermann always kept their guns until needed and if this chief inspector had a girlfriend who was the chanteuse at the Club Mirage. Gabrielle would have to be warned.

The boys had held a little conference and then had followed this Sonja Remer. She had gone into the toilets at the restaurant. Guy Vachon, having lost at straws, had snatched the handbag. She had shrieked and cried out, had chased them, but they had run to the carousel, had passed the bag from hand to hand, vanishing into the park as delinquent boys will who know their territory.

‘And now?’ he had to ask. ‘Now we must solve the matter or face the consequences.’ Arms weren’t regulation issue for
Blitzmädel
, not unless they had first been assigned a special duty and then trained for it. The Fräulein Remer had spoken French fluently. ‘Her accent was good,’ Hervé Desrochers had said. ‘She wanted to know how well you and Herr Kohler worked together, had heard lots of stories, but wanted to hear it from a Frenchman. The operator of that machine, you know how he is. A mouth like a pipe organ.’

‘A storm,’ Antoine had said. ‘We had to find out who she was, Monsieur Louis.’

‘It was intelligence work,’ Dédé had added. ‘Information you and Herr Kohler would need.’ There had been a fully loaded spare clip among the boy’s share of the loot, but no time to take the matter further. The handbag had been quickly restuffed and now lay in the Citroën under the front seat with their guns, the car locked, of course, though that in itself was no guarantee against theft and he would absolutely have to find Hermann and quickly.

‘There was a chocolate bar,’ Dédé had added, ‘and … and a small tin of
bonbons à la menthe
from the Abbaye de Flavigny. These, they are missing.’

And hadn’t there been an explosion of juvenile delinquency? Hadn’t the number of serious cases before the courts tripled since 1939? Didn’t Hercule the Smasher preside over the worst of these cases in the département de la Seine? ‘Hercule Rouget … Ah
merde, merde,
I should have thought of it when questioning that daughter of his but spent the time with Gaston Morel.’

When Luc Desrocher’s
vélo-taxi
, the Red Comb of the Magnificent Cock, rolled in, he was ready. ‘Monsieur Albert Vasseur? Sûreté. A moment, please.’

‘Time is too precious. How the hell am I supposed to pay the evening’s rent for this shit box when you people refuse to release my taxi for repairs and claim it is needed evidence?’

‘I’ll see what can be done.’

‘Have I not heard that before?’

‘Calm down.’

‘Or you will have me arrested? HEY, OO-OO,
MES AMIS
, HELP! It wasn’t my fault the taxi was stolen. Georges, tell him. Henri, you too. Martin, you also, and Jacques.’

They had all climbed out from the shelter of their respective cabs, rain or no rain.

‘They will vouch for me, Inspector. One pedals and pedals and cannot piss one’s trousers, can one?’

There was definite agreement on the matter, tobacco smoke too.

‘I came in and hardly made it to the watering trough.’

‘You must know how the Germans are for cleanliness, Inspector,’ insisted one. ‘If they catch us pissing into the boulevard des Capucines, they have a fit and give us three years forced labour in the Reich or the same but of idleness in the Santé.’

‘The
vespasienne
is over there in the darkness,’ said another. ‘Albert, he has …’

‘Yes, yes. Please let him tell me himself.’

‘We’re only trying to help,’ grumbled one.

‘No one asks our opinion,’ said another.

‘Blackout mugging and rapes are bad for business yet the law refuses to listen. Come on,
mes amis,
let’s go.’

‘Wait! I’ll listen to each of you but first …’

‘I stepped into the urinal, Inspector, and up to the trough,’ said Vasseur. ‘I hurried with the buttons, one of which popped off, and there’s no light in those damned things anymore, so it’s gone forever. Who the hell’s going to bomb them anyway, a little pinpoint of light like that and seen from five thousand metres or more? Others came in behind to rub shoulders.
Jésus,
save us, what was I to have thought on a night like that or this? The weather brings on the flood. The one to my left said it was a bitch; the one to my right sighed with relief.’

‘And then?’

‘The one on the right finished up. The one to the left took longer but stayed to let me finish and didn’t go out the other way as he could have, so I was forced to retreat and went out as I’d come in.’

‘With that one right behind you.’

‘That is correct. When I got here, the boys were already chasing after my taxi.’

‘Height?’

‘Both medium.’

‘Weight?’

‘The first broad-shouldered like a wedge, the second with the gut of a barrel. I had to throw up a hand to stop myself from kissing the metal as he went past me on entering to relieve himself.’

The urinal’s walls were concentric shells with standing room only between. ‘Those two sandwiched you.’

‘It’s possible.’

Hermann, if he could, would always share his cigarettes at times like this, but there were none. ‘The accent of the man with the gut?’

‘The Butte.’

Montmartre. ‘Anything else?’

‘The smell of sardines. I’m sure of this.’

Even so, it would have to be said. ‘Those urinals reek.’

‘Of course, and I can’t understand why I should have smelled such a meal. Perhaps it was simply because I was hungry. It’s been years since I’ve had any.’

‘Inspector, I smelled them too,’ interjected one of the others. ‘The son of a bitch who stole the taxi shoved me out of the way. I slipped as I grabbed him. I struggled to get up and he clobbered me. Hands … He had big hands, this much I do know also.’

‘
Oui, oui,
but sardines … ? Could it have been Norwegian fish-oil margarine?’

‘To keep out the rain?’ exclaimed another. ‘He’d have needed more than the tickets give.’

Considered muttering followed, then passive agreement. ‘Oilskins and old ones, Inspector. Grease on the shoulders, upper arms and hat, but, of course, a supply,’ said the one who had been shoved.

‘
Ah, bon,
now we’re getting somewhere but, M. Vasseur, how did they know you would return here and not go directly to the École Centrale to pick up Madame Guillaumet?’

‘Tell him, Albert,’ said one of the others. ‘You’re going to have to.’

‘Earlier I’d picked up a fare here. He asked to be taken to the intersection of the rue Réaumur and the boulevard de Sébastopol …’

‘And all but to the
passage
de la Trinité and close enough to the École Centrale.’

This Sûreté had understood. ‘But when we got there, he changed his mind and asked to be brought back.’

The timing then; three men also. ‘And that one? Come, come, remember.’

‘How am I to do so? They come out of that café full of food and wine and smoking good cigars or cigarettes, and they shout, “Hey, you. Taxi,” as if they owned the world and had the right to order people around. Do you know where my beautiful Peugeot 301 is? A 1933 and cared for like a baby? They took her away in July of 1940, and when they discovered she had a thirst, brought her back minus the tyres and battery!’

A cigarette was offered in sympathy, a drag being inhaled and then another. ‘I took him where he wanted to go, Inspector. That’s my job, isn’t it?’