‘Years ago, but not since Monsieur de Bonnevies returned from the war. The two of them must have come to some agreement.’
‘Why?’ he had demanded.
Lemoine had shrugged and said, ‘The priest was interfering in the girl’s recovery. Hearing the confessions of the deranged, troubling her unnecessarily. That sort of thing. Always after one of the good father’s visits, Angèle-Marie would be silent for hours and would insist on standing in a corner, facing the wall.’
‘No tears?’
‘None. Just voices, but those of the inner mind and never spoken or cried out. We came to dread these visits and I think, in some ways, so did she.’
The train shot into the Saint-Marcel Station. At once there was extreme pressure from those who wanted to get off or on. Dislodged, St-Cyr was shoved brutally out on to the platform, was caught, dragged, heard the doors shutting … shutting, and finally managed to get back in.
‘I’ve received a letter from home, Freda,’ said one of the Blitzmädels to the other in deutsch. ‘All nonessential businesses have been ordered to close. Every male from the age of sixteen to sixty-five has to report for duty. All are being mobilized.’
The Reich had finally done it. The situation in the east must be far more serious even than the defeat at Stalingrad indicated.
‘Scham Dich, Schwatzerl’ said the shorter, plumper Blitz-mädchen sharply. Shame on you, bigmouth. ‘The enemy is listening — silence is your duty!’
The quote had come from a popular poster which showed a duck in coveralls quacking loudly. The temptation was more than he could resist, but perhaps caution had best prevail. ‘Mein Partner says it’s even rumoured they are watering the beer at the Adlon,’ he said pleasantly enough in German. One of Berlin’s finest hotels.
‘What can’t kill me, strengthens me,’ retorted the Feldwebel with a broad grin. Another popular saying, but enough said by all concerned for now!
The train began to cross the first bridge — one could feel the change. Elevated — out in the open air; in darkness, too, it had once been possible to see almost the whole of the Salpêtrière even at night, but now the city was plunged into darkness, now even the dim lightbulbs of the carriage didn’t glow through the ether of their times.
From two million passengers a day in 1940, the metro’s ticket sales had leapt to four million. And we live as a nation of moles when not on our bicycles or walking, said St-Cyr to himself, but had Rudi Sturmbacher been right? Had the enemy some monstrous new weapon that would rain flying bombs on England?
On our hope, our strength, as is America.
Rudi could do with one of those posters. He’d have to suggest it to Hermann who would immediately insist on it.
We are two originals ourselves, he said, but in this, though there has been the greatest of good fortune, there can only be danger. War, like small-town and village neighbourhoods the world over, frowned heavily on all but the ordinary.
Once through the Gare d’Austerlitz, the train headed out over the Seine and he could feel this, too, and knew there had formerly been splendid views of the river, the Île de la Cité and the Notre Dame.
When the train began to dive underground, he decided he’d had enough of it. ‘The morgue,’ he said in deutsch. ‘I’ve a murder investigation to see to and must get off.’
The Feldwebel shoved several out of the way and stooped — yes, actually stooped — to retrieve the whistle. ‘This is yours, I believe,’ he said and grinned hugely again. ‘It was under my jackboot. So sorry.’
And had been flattened just like a certain birdcage!
The warmth, the sounds of the restaurant were all around them but the former bathing beauty still had a gaze that was even emptier than his own and he was getting nowhere, felt Kohler uncomfortably. Mein Gott, what was running through that mind of hers?
‘You do not eat,’ she said, jabbing with her fork to indicate his stew. ‘It is not good to let it get cold.’
Steadily marshalling food and drink, she had downed potato pancakes and chicken with cream sauce and mushrooms as if there was no tomorrow and to hell with keeping one’s figure. The bottle of Riesling had all but been sunk. The steak knife she had requested had yet to be touched but was unfortunately far too close to hand.
From time to time one of her shoes would brush against his trouser leg under the table, as if daring him to make a pass at her. He’d have to use the son again. ‘Lorient,’ he lied. ‘I was just thinking … Well, one of the boys we had to question at the submarine base there looked a lot like you, but … Ach! It can’t be possible.’
Caught off guard, she winced and set her fork down. ‘What boy?’
‘A Fähnrich zur See. There was some trouble — not with its crew or the boy, so don’t let it worry you. My partner and I had to visit the base to ask a few questions. A local thing. Nothing else. You know how the French are. They kill each other in the most diabolical ways and then try to blame it on their friends from the Reich, when we’ve only come to put a little order into their lives.’
Louis would have shuddered at that. ‘The sergeant would have been about nineteen, Frau Schlacht. A quite handsome young man. Promoted often. Eager to do his duty for Führer and fatherland and proud of it, too.’
‘Klaus … was it my Klaus?’ she stammered. ‘I … I have a photo. Yes … yes, it is here in my purse. A moment, Herr Inspektor.’ Could he really have spoken to Klaus? wondered Frau Schlacht. Was it possible?
Lorient … so Klaus’s submarine had been based there.
Herr Inspektor, thought Kohler. So she’d figured that one out. Then it would be best to be firm. ‘An Atlantikboot Type lXB. U-297, but that’s confidential.’
‘Yes … yes, of course.’
‘Gut. There are spies everywhere these days.’
The Inspector took the snapshot from her fingers, hesitating long enough to look at her with compassion and no longer such emptiness. ‘He … he was the best of boys,’ she said earnestly. ‘A Kapitän … I could see him with his own command one day.’
Not in the Freikorps Doenitz, the U-boat Service. Not likely! ‘That’s him, Frau Schlacht. I never forget a face. Men like myself are trained to remember and I’ve had years at it.’
Years … ‘U-297 … And this boat was sunk?’ she asked and heard him say, ‘Last December, the fifteenth. A Tuesday.’
Then it was true. True!
Pale and badly shaken, the woman swallowed hard, touching the face in the photograph, forcing herself not to kiss it and cry, but to simply put the thing away for later.
And I’m a cruel bastard, said Kohler to himself, but as the Maréchal Pétain is so fond of saying these days, La cause en vaut les moyens. The cause justifies the means.
‘Frau Schlacht, you’ll forgive me, but we’ve not met by accident. I need to ask you a few questions. Nothing difficult. They’re just routine.’
‘Questions …?’
The emptiness of her gaze returned, the mask perhaps that of the rejected forty-four-year-old housewife whose husband was fucking someone else and who had come to hate all men as a result.
‘Bitte, mein guter Inspektor, ask.’
The shrug she gave was that of one who had known all along he was a cop. ‘Let’s begin, then, with last Thursday.’
‘Not until I know the reason why.’
‘You’ll not have heard yet, but the beekeeper who used to visit you was murdered.’
‘On Thursday?’ she asked without a hint of surprise or other emotion.
‘That evening.’
‘And is it that you wish to know where I was?’
This thing was going to go round and round unless he was careful. ‘The afternoon, I think. Let’s begin then.’