Tapestry (4 page)

A mackerel, a pimp and not a homosexual at all? He’d been young and healthy, maybe twenty-two years of age. Well groomed, thought Kohler, blinking away the tears. In good shape, well fed, the pomade having greased the jet-black hair down and still shedding the rain.

‘He’s not languishing with all the others in the Reich, is he?’ said Louis.

There were one-and-a-half million French POWs in Germany, millions of Allied ones too. ‘And not an STO conscript either,’ managed Kohler. The Service du Travail Obligatoire, the forced labour­ call-up, but
liebe Zeit
, how could Louis and he talk like this, as if nothing were out of the ordinary and they’d seen it every day, which they had.

There was no smell of cordite, though, he thought warily. Not even that of broken geranium stems—mustard gas. Nor had the sweetness of rotting human flesh and the stench of erupted bowels come to him yet, or that of mouldy earth with its bits of tattered clothing and blood-shredded arms and legs.

Late autumn 1914, that, and on into the winter of 1914–1915 in Alsace, then later at Verdun, but did it matter a damn now, those dates with Louis firing at him from the other side?

‘Hermann, please don’t be so hard on yourself. Go and bring us a blanket. Let’s make him decent. You know that always helped. Respect we used to call it, you boys as well. Respect for those who wouldn’t be going home.’

‘The press, Louis. If they’ve already been here, Boemelburg is going to tear his hair, what little he has left of it.’

Von Schaumburg, too, the Kommandant von Gross-Paris.

‘Maybe it was the way he’d fallen to his knees that caused the
flics
to brand him a homosexual,’ said Kohler.

One just didn’t mention them these days if possible. Invariably they kept a low profile. ‘I’ll check his temperature, shall I, Inspector,’ came the reminder to bugger off.
Lieber Christus im Himmel
how could Louis do it? Shaking down the mercury like that while shielding it; peering at the gradations to make sure he got it right, then easing the thing inside?

Cold weather would speed the cooling but nowhere near what was commonly thought. Each corpse had its own rate—even the time of day and the weather could influence it, but on average a corpse lost heat at a little over two degrees Centigrade an hour—that was the figure Louis often used. And from thirty-seven degrees this one’s had fallen to …

‘Nineteen and close enough.’

Death had occurred at between eight and nine last night, though the coroner would have to confirm it. ‘Did the evening’s entertainment begin with him?’ asked Kohler sadly.

Was it a portent of things to come? wondered St-Cyr. ‘And then the girl who telephoned?’

‘Was this one her pimp?’

‘Perhaps, but for now we must wait.’

One of the lanterns was reached for. Dutifully Hermann started up the stairs to get a blanket.

‘I’m going to have to watch over him,’ confided St-Cyr to the victim. ‘He was forced to witness some terrible things only a day or two ago, was showered with broken glass and has been hating himself ever since when no blame should ever be attached to him. He’s not responsible for Hitler and the Nazis, or the Gestapo and the SS, or what the Wehrmacht are doing in Russia and have done elsewhere. As a detective, he had to belong to the Kripo—one couldn’t have resigned in protest. He has never had anything to do with any of them, has always been apart and himself and, since coming to France, has become a citizen of the world to whom a little polishing is necessary from time to time.’

At 7.45 a.m., the light was pitiful and the sleet had changed to such a heavy downpour one had to be mindful of the marker that was along the quai de la Tournelle, right where there was a fabulous view of the Notre-Dame on warm, sunny days. Normally the river’s level stood at two metres, Kohler knew. At four, all traffic had had to stop before the Defeat, though now that was, perhaps, less of a problem, but anything beyond that level and the city would need its water wings.

‘When this quits, Louis, there’ll be fog for days,’ he grumbled. In war, as in this Occupation, there wasn’t any sense in getting sentimental about anything.

The Lido had yielded zero about the caller of last night. No one had mentioned anything about anyone having been forced to telephone the police, nor had anyone gone missing.

It wasn’t good. It was terrible, and yes, at least three-quarters of the audience of last night or any other would have been of the Occupier, the rest their friends. And that, too, wasn’t good, for both Louis and he knew damned well that the Occupier craved female company and could and did commit murder or any other common crime.

While they’d been there, the
quartier
’s commissariat had found them and now, more than soaked to the skin and freezing, they were standing in the rain, waiting. The warden of the Parc Monceau, one of the city’s loveliest and not far from the
préfet
’s school or the Lido, had found freshly dug earth and hastily replaced flagstones under the shelter of an arbour and had let the
flic
on patrol know about it.

‘The fingers can’t be here, Hermann. The gates to the park would have been locked at the time of the killing.’

Yet chance could and did play a part in things these days. Bourgeois—wealthy beyond mention, some of the
quartier
’s residents—the park was second home to the establishment.

‘Financiers, Hermann. Bankers, lawyers, men of commerce but writers too. Proust lived nearby and loved this park. It comes out in what he wrote of it. Old money, new money …’ Brusquely Louis indicated the surrounding hotels and mansions as if even within
les hautes
there were substrata that did not mingle.

It was tough being a Socialist, thought Kohler of his partner. They were standing near the northeastern end of the park, overlooking the naumachia where frozen, moss- and ivy-covered Corinthian columns formed a horseshoe at the far end of an ice-clad pond atop which water had rapidly pooled. Rose beds in winter’s burlap, were to the left. Pigeons—perhaps the few that hadn’t yet been trapped and eaten—suffered atop the colonnade. Beyond them, the trees were tall; beyond those lay the fence and some of the
hôtels particuliers
of the very wealthy. Nice … it must be nice to live there and overlook the park.

Beyond these residences lay the boulevard de Courcelles and the boulevard Malesherbes.

The warden, in his cape, hat, rubber boots and faded blue coveralls, was watching as two of the underwardens carefully removed the earth. ‘Inspectors …’

Ten fingers—were all of them here to remind him of the trenches of that other war? wondered Kohler.

The grave was shallow. ‘A dog’s ear, Hermann.’

There were mutters of consternation. ‘I can see that, Louis. A terrier’s. Irish probably. Is there a tattoo?’

All dogs with a pedigree, and this was a
quartier
for them, would wear their registration number inside an ear.

The fur was rusty coloured and more shaggy than wiry but still, the ear was long and pointed as it should be and there were two of them and the tail and paws as further proof, and not dead that long, thought Kohler. Maybe a day, maybe two or three, given that it was still winter. ‘Number 375614, Louis. Skinned, the pelt sold or kept, but in either case to be tanned for further use, the rest consigned to the stew pot or soup.’

Dog snatching had become rife, felt St-Cyr. Household pets of all kinds were at risk. Notices, posted on walls, warned of the dangers of eating cats, since the vermin they might have consumed would surely carry disease. And hadn’t the average family or individual already seen nearly 80 percent of their wage packet’s prewar purchasing power vanish? Hadn’t those same wages been frozen at 1939 levels? Wasn’t the Occupation’s horrendous inflation one of its most tragic curses, the consequences being suicide and lawlessness? ‘I’ll just bag these, Hermann, and we’ll be on our way.’

The
passage
de la Trinité, that of the Jouffroy, the Restaurant Drouant and the police academy … A
vélo-taxi
theft and the beating-rape of its passenger and purse-snatching, a safecracking with clay from the sewers, a brutal mugging, slashing, deliberate humiliation and another handbag snatch, a violent murder and a missing pet.

‘Assignments that are given on purpose and others that are not, Hermann.’

‘The stench of fish oil. A man with a gut.’

‘Grease, and two wedding rings. It’s curious, is it not, that both the Trinité victim and one of the Drouant victims have absent husbands.’

Who were languishing in prisoner-of-war camps in the Reich or farther to the east—they’d found this out when they’d taken Giselle and Oona to the Trinité victim’s flat to look after the children. ‘Did the assailant or assailants know beforehand where each of the victims would be, Louis?’

That, too, was a good question for which there could, as yet, be no adequate answer.

When the boys heard the sound of the Citroën at 8.42 a.m., they knew absolutely who it was. That big, black, beautiful
traction avant
slid to a stop down there at number 3 rue Laurence Savart in Belleville. Antoine Courbet’s mother did the cleaning but never the washing-up. Hadn’t Monsieur Jean-Louis once said that such a humble activity was the best way of relieving tension and that he’d better keep doing it so long as the pots hadn’t burned the dinner. What dinner?

‘He’s home at last,’ said Guy Vachon with a sigh. They’d be late for school.

‘It’s been ages since we’ve seen him,’ said Dédé Labelle. ‘At least a week.’

Together they stood in the rain those two detectives. ‘They look exhausted,’ whispered Guy. ‘Has there been trouble?’

‘There’s always trouble for them,’ whispered Antoine. ‘Maybe your
papa
can find them another set of side mirrors.’

They all knew that Monsieur Jean-Louis didn’t like using the black market or imposing on the neighbours. Hadn’t Antoine been the one to suggest his mother look after the house in the chief inspector’s absence and that of the second wife and little son?

‘That wife and son having been killed when the Gestapo left a bomb the Résistance had hidden on the doorstep for him,’ said Hervé Desrochers, shaking his head just like everyone else did at the thought. ‘A
collabo
, that’s what those people in the Résistance think he is because he has to work with a German. The wife hadn’t helped either by coming home from the flames of a love affair with one of the enemy simply because the thrusting, it was over, and that one had been sent to the Russian front.’

‘It was the long absences,’ muttered Dédé sadly. ‘She never knew if Monsieur Jean-Louis
would
come home.’

‘He only has a Lebel Modèle d’ordonnance 1892 six-shot, swing-out, double-action revolver. The eight millimetre,’ said Hervé with a sigh.

‘It’s
not
the 1892, idiot!’ said Antoine. ‘I don’t think he’s
ever
been allowed one of those. It’s another 1873. Don’t you remember that he was first issued an 1873 by Gestapo stores but that he then lost it in the Rhône at Lyon?’

A case of arson. A packed cinema …

‘The 1873 uses black powder, low-pressure, eleven-millimetre cartridges,’ admitted Hervé reluctantly.

‘They’re almost as big as those for the British Webley Mark VI, the .455 inch.’ said Dédé with a sigh.

‘The 11.6 millimetre. He looks as exhausted as his geraniums,’ said Antoine. ‘
Maman
says he needed that second wife and is going completely to seed in her absence.’

‘He needs another gun,’ said Hervé tartly. ‘That old Lebel is no match for the Walther P38, nine-millimetre Parabellum automatic Herr Kohler packs. Eight in the clip,
mes vieux
. Another up the spout and a little pin that sticks out to tell him all is safe but ready. Three hundred and fifty metres a second muzzle velocity and almost double that of the Mark VI.’

‘It’s a semiautomatic,’ said Guy. ‘
Bien sûr
, you don’t have to pull the slide back when there’s one in the chamber, but Monsieur Jean-Louis, he can hit a swallow at forty paces.’

Everyone knew swallows were among the fastest of birds but … ‘
Imbécile
,’ hissed Hervé, ‘a slug like that would blast the bird to pieces. He’s a nature lover and would
never
shoot such a thing!’

‘But those old cartridges,’ muttered Dédé, ‘they’re so tired sometimes they don’t even bother to wake up when struck by the firing pin.’

It was a worry. Ex-champion boxer of the police academy and soccer forward, ex-sergeant in a signal corps in that other war, Monsieur Jean-Louis had been wounded twice, the left side as usual. No medals, no citations—he wasn’t a man for those but had never complained of it. ‘I always tried to duck,’ he had once said, ‘but honourably’.

‘BOYS, WHY ARE YOU NOT IN SCHOOL?’ came the yell.

‘THE STREETS, THEY ARE NO LONGER SAFE AT NIGHT FOR OUR SISTERS AND MOTHERS, MONSIEUR L’INSPECTEUR PRINCIPAL. WE ARE PROTESTING AND HAVE GONE ON STRIKE!’

Good for Hervé.

‘IT’S TOO WET AND SLIPPERY FOR SOCCER,’ added Guy. ‘WE CAN’T KICK THE BALL TO YOU.’

‘Louis …’

In hooded rain capes, the boys waited to see what their response would bring. Hollow-eyed and gaunt, each of the little buggers gazed guiltily up from under shelter.

‘Now what’s this about a strike?’ asked Louis.

‘We’re late,’ confessed Dédé. ‘We only wanted to see if you had arrived home safely so that the pretty lady would no longer be distressed.’

‘What pretty lady?’

‘Your chanteuse.’

‘She’s not mine or anyone’s but her own.’

Natal’ya Kulakov-Myshkin, alias Gabrielle Arcuri of the Club Mirage on the rue Delambre over on the Left Bank, in Montparnasse. ‘The one who sings to eight hundred of the Green Beans and over the wireless to all the others at the front?’ asked Kohler blithely.

Both to the Krauts and to the Allies, since those boys would also listen in and she had such a fabulous voice. ‘
Oui,
that one,’ said Dédé. ‘After your train came back from Vichy and you had to leave for Colmar, she came from the station to stand outside the house of your mother,
Monsieur l’inspecteur principal
. She didn’t cry, though I thought she was going to.’