Tapestry (25 page)

Four staff cars, their drivers waiting with engines running, were in a line of their own, their officers inside as prospective buyers of what had been left beyond the required length of time. Six months, was it, or now three?

‘Four,’ came the intuitive reply, Louis not liking what they were seeing, but where else were those who had no firm contacts in the black market supposed to go, if not here?

‘You’d better let me come with you,’ said Kohler. ‘You know how shirty those bastards behind the wickets can be. Muscle is the only thing they understand.’

‘And is it that you still don’t think I’ve got what it takes?’

Three pale-green tickets were dug out of one of those bottomless overcoat pockets. Always Louis was collecting the bits and pieces of each investigation.

‘So often, Hermann, it’s the little things that count. When I found these in Noëlle Jourdan’s empty locker at the
Hôtel-Dieu,
I knew I couldn’t resist a visit here.’

‘You’re enjoying yourself. Admit it.’

‘That girl has much to tell us and now we are about to pry the secrets from her but …’

‘Boemelburg will insist that we not bother wasting time with the robbery at Au Philatéliste Savant.’

‘And that’s precisely why I’m making certain we do, especially as we were definitely not to have been assigned to that one.’

‘Noëlle Jourdan didn’t pawn the collection.’

‘But it’s curious, isn’t it? Why pawn other items and not that one?’

‘Familiarity. Too frequent a visitor to this place?’

‘Perhaps, but then …
ah, mais alors, alors
, Hermann, was it that the girl realized how little Ma Tante was given to charity and wished to better herself?’

‘Or knew those tickets could be used to identify her.’

Good for Hermann. ‘But did the robbery of those stamps really have nothing whatsoever to do with the murders and assaults or has chance played its part by sending us to it?’

Chance could sometimes mean everything these days. ‘I’m waiting, Louis. I do know that for the lousy two thousand francs
Le Matin
paid her, the girl gave up a very promising career.’

‘One that obviously allowed her to acquire the Veronal her dear
papa
needed.’

‘A
papa
who should have been wearing his Légion d’honneur. And now what’s she to do, eh? Try her hand at making artillery shells or lorries and aircraft here for the Reich, or get on a train to there and leave that father behind?’

‘Or find some shopkeeper who’ll be willing to hire and not insist on getting into her?’

‘There has to have been a reason.’

‘And we have to find it, even if the theft of those stamps is totally unrelated to the rest.’

‘Which it can’t have been, can it?’

‘Not unless I’m very wrong.’

The tureen, of Augsburg silver circa 1770, was magnificent. Brought out to be laid on the counter of despair, its design incorporated the heads of several
Chrysanthemum leucanthemum
. ‘A priceless heirloom for such a poor household, Hermann.
Mon Dieu,
there was hardly any furniture in the flat and never a trace of anything like this.’

‘And that one?’ asked Kohler, still shouldering the curious out of the way.

‘A pilgrim bottle in Augsburg silver-gilt.’

‘Late seventeenth century,’ offered the mouse in the bow tie behind the wicket.

‘Engraved, Hermann. Peasants at table in an orchard. The mark of its maker, that of?’ asked Louis pleasantly enough.

‘Johann Christoph Treffler,’ swallowed Jérome Godet. These two were going to insist on confiscating the items. Monsieur le Directeur Ducasse, who had still not come back from lunch, would be furious and bound to dismiss him.

‘And the last?’ asked the one with the dueling scar who was still toying with the pistol he had lain on the counter.

‘Meissen, Herr …’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten? Louis, can you believe it? Tell him my name.’

‘It’s not necessary. Now please don’t argue, Herr Hauptmann. We haven’t time. An urgent meeting with Gestapo Boemelburg …’

‘Meissen, Inspectors. The work is most probably that of Heinrici, the date perhaps 1750.’

‘A gold-mounted,
Commedia dell’ Arte
double snuffbox, Herr Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter Kohler. The funds released to hold such objects, Agent Jérome Godet?’

Ah, merde
! ‘One hundred francs for the box; one fifty for the bottle, and …’ It would do no good to lie. ‘Three hundred for the tureen.’

A fantastic bargain.

‘Pay him, Hermann. That way he’ll be certain to remember your name and not mine. Sign for the objects, too, of course, and tell him that they’ll be returned unless it’s discovered that they’ve been stolen, in which case, by having accepted them and not notifying the proper authorities, he’ll face a charge of compliance perhaps or even complicity.’

Out on the street, back in the Citroën, Hermann sighed as he fondly gripped the wheel of a car that wasn’t even his. ‘I enjoyed that, Louis. It was like old times. I stopped worrying about everything else.’

Newspapers littered the antique limewood desk that had been made larger by the addition of pine planks.
Bien sûr
,
Le Matin
and
Paris-Soir
were there, but also the
Berliner Zeitung
and
Das Schwarze Korps
—that of the SS—
Der Angriff
as well, The Assault—Goebbels’s Berlin afternoon paper. All were splashed with the news from Paris and all were, no doubt, demanding that the crisis be settled and the streets made safe again.

‘Walter …’ hazarded St-Cyr. The
Herein
, the Come in, had been brutal.

‘
SCHMETTERLINGE
, LOUIS.
DIE KLEINE SCHLAMPE
WAS CAUGHT PUTTING THEM IN
MÉTRO
CARRIAGES. HAND-­COLOURED PAPER STICKERS THE SIZE OF MY THUMBPRINT. RAF BULL’S-EYES ON THE WINGS, THE CROSS OF LORRAINE ON THE BODIES.
VERDAMMTE HURE,
SHE’LL HAVE TO BE SHOT!’

Butterflies were what these little stickers were called, though not always done in the shape of such but, ‘Walter …’

‘
Putain de merde,
what is wrong with you French?
ORDNUNG MUSS SEIN!
’

Fucking hell … order must prevail. The big hands were thrown out in defeat, the all but shaven, blunt grey head shaken in despair.

‘Ten hostages are not enough. Twenty will have to be chosen and she’ll have to be one of them. The Höherer SS will insist on it. I’m sorry, Louis. It can’t be helped. Not this time.’

‘Walter, who was the girl?’

A name was searched for but couldn’t be found. The Nordic eyes, bagged by overwork and worry, were ever angry. ‘It was an ATTACK!’ came the shrill response. ‘WE THOUGHT WE HAD BROKEN THE BACK OF THE FTP IN DECEMBER. INFILTRATED, BETRAYED, WE HAD THEM ALL.’

But not quite. The Francs-Tireurs et Partisans …

‘COMMUNISTS. IMMIGRANTS—ROMANIANS, ITALIANS, JEWS, POLISH
UNTERMENSCHEN
!’

Subhumans.

‘At ten this morning, when you two were no doubt still asleep, one of them tossed a grenade into a lorry on the boulevard Haussmann and close enough for the avenue Foch to have heard the blast. French driver killed, French assistant killed, windows shattered, blood and glass all over the street and everyone rushing in to grab what meat they could and let the bastard get away.’ A breath was caught. ‘Chickens … Alive but a moment beforehand.’

And a black-market lorry, sighed Kohler inwardly and still standing behind Louis but towering over him as the chief would too. Fifty percent of those chickens would have already been removed by the boys on the controls, and as for the FTP, unlike other
réseaux
if they even existed, and they did, their whole policy was one of armed resistance, hence the hostages that would have to be shot.

‘Now sit down. Kohler close the door. Louis, have a cigarette. Go on. Take one.’

‘
Merci
. Hermann, would you …’

‘I didn’t offer him one, Louis.’

‘Forgive me, then, if I save it for later.’

‘All right, Kohler, you may take one, but only one.’

‘The butterflies, Walter. Let’s have that, so that we can fully comprehend what has upset you so much.’

That bit of paper was finally found. ‘A schoolgirl. Age seventeen. Geneviève Beauchamp. No previous record but juvenile delinquency has become a problem, hasn’t it?’

Oh-oh, the boys. Antoine and the others, thought Kohler. The squeeze.

‘Walter, the Fräulein Sonja Remer’s handbag was returned by me via Rudi Sturmbacher,’ said Louis.

‘And not thrown there from a passing bicycle taxi?’

‘Not thrown.’

‘But without its chocolate bar, Louis, and tin of bonbons,’ said Boemelburg.

‘That couldn’t be helped, given the shortages and the necessity of returning it as soon as possible, along with its Tokarev TT-33, which was fully loaded.’

Such sang-froid in the face of the inevitable was admirable. ‘
À beau jeu
,
beau retour,
then, Louis.’ One good turn deserves another.

‘Kohler, you and Louis will take the Fräulein Remer fully into your confidence. You will involve her, work with her and use her to fullest advantage. Is that understood?’

Rudi had been right. Giselle was to have been the bait. ‘
Jawohl,
Sturmbannführer.’

‘
Gut
. Now these murders, muggings and rapes. What have you got for me?’

‘They’re the work of more than one individual,’ said Kohler.
Gott sei Dank,
Louis had been in and had read the chief’s note, pinned to the left of the map.

‘The level of violence is escalating,’ said St-Cyr.

‘Well planned, Louis?’

‘Exceptionally so.’

‘Good sources of information?’

‘Excellent,’ interjected Hermann. ‘We have a probable source but would like to hold that for the time being.’

‘A gang?’ asked Boemelburg.

‘Most certainly,’ said Louis, ‘though they might not wish to refer to themselves as such.’

‘Terrorist links?’

‘None that are known, but …’ went on Hermann.

‘But what?’

Louis gave a nod. ‘The mothballs are a possibility,’ said Kohler. ‘One of them, or two, or more.’

‘Ex-military types, Walter. This was found at the site of the police academy killing.’

‘The ribbon of the Légion d’honneur. Some honour, eh? I want him, you two. He’s to be made an example of.’

And hadn’t the General von Schaumburg said the same to Hermann? ‘There is one thing that has yet to be clarified, Walter. Whoever wore this may not have been its owner. That is to say, he may have worn the ribbon to …’

‘Facilitate things,’ sighed Boemelburg, ‘since the very sight of it still opens doors and commands respect. Now give me the identity of the police academy victim?’

‘We’re working on it,’ managed Hermann. ‘There’s …’

‘A connection with another killing, Walter. A delicate matter we felt it best to discuss with you first.’

‘How delicate?’

‘Very,’ breathed Hermann. ‘The rue La Boétie. A dancer from the Lido, half-
indochinoise
and mistress of Judge Hercule Rouget,
Président du
…’

‘
Ach, mein Gott
, what is it with you two? The Höherer SS is going to have to be informed of this but have either of you any idea of what he’ll say to me, and it is to me who will be left the task of telling him?’

Calm was necessary. ‘Walter,’ said St-Cyr, ‘her murder was quite possibly done in the judge’s flat so that her killers could hide behind his close association with the Höherer SS.’

‘Rouget would have had to inform him of it so as to hush things up—is this what you’re saying?’

It was.

‘Two men, Sturmbannführer, one of whom was familiar with the flat.’

Kohler had found her then, not Louis.

‘The girl’s killing is definitely linked to that of the police academy,’ said St-Cyr.

‘Though she was not, in so far as we yet know, present during that killing, the girl was most likely taken from the Lido after first having been forced to telephone the press and then the police.’

‘And not killed until last night, Kohler?’

‘Killed at between 0100 and 0130 hours Friday, Sturmbannführer. The child she was carrying was deliberately removed and an attempt made to hide it from investigating officers.’

‘Uncontrolled rage, Walter, was evident also in the earlier killing at the academy and …’ Louis paused. ‘In that of the
passage
de l’Hirondelle of yesterday afternoon, a girl who was wearing the overcoat and hat of Giselle le Roy.’

‘Who must have discovered she was being followed, Sturmbannführer.’

‘Oberg’s choice of bait, Louis?’ blurted Boemelburg.

‘We don’t yet know where Mademoiselle le Roy is, but are working on it.’

‘There’s something else,’ apologized Hermann. ‘The Trinité victim, and both of the Drouant victims, were being investigated by the Agence Vidocq, a M. Flavien Garnier.’

‘You two … Are you both so blind? The avenue Foch and ourselves use them from time to time. Garnier is one of ours, as is his employer.’

‘The Intervention-Referat?’ managed Louis. It had had to be asked.

‘That I can’t, of course, answer, but I didn’t know the
agence
was keeping an eye on unlicenced
horizontales
. You watch yourselves with this. Don’t, and see what happens. Now get out. You have twenty-four hours and, Kohler …’

Boemelburg stubbed out his half-finished cigarette. ‘Don’t steal any more cars. It doesn’t look good for me in Berlin. It can’t, can it, especially when the Kommandant von Gross-Paris has to telephone me about it?’

‘That girl, Walter? Geneviève Beauchamp … That misguided teenager?’ tried Louis, a patriot to the last.

‘I’ll see what I can do but is it that you want me to have the boys in your neighbourhood arrested and their families?’

Instead of executing the girl? ‘Walter, we’ll solve this matter for you. We’re almost there and only need a little more time.’

‘Good. See that you do but don’t forget what I said about the Agence Vidocq.’

Again they shared a cigarette. Consulting others who must be working on blackout crime would be useless. There was simply too much hatred, too much jealousy. ‘Blitzkrieg is the only thing Walter understands at the moment, Hermann, what with Himmler and the rest of Berlin breathing fire down his back and Oberg no doubt fanning the flames.’