Kohler stabbed at the papers but the Lance-Corporal breathed, ‘I’m not alone.’
Oh-oh. ‘Who’s with you? Well, come on. Out with it.’
The concourse below was indicated. ‘The soup kitchen,’ said Becker. ‘Unterfeldwebel Voegler is warming his toes. Apparently this “Old Shatter Hand” of yours feels the two of us are necessary, especially as the curfew has begun and the doors are all supposed to be locked.’
A wise one; and a sergeant too! ‘And how long will he be down there?’
‘A half-hour, maybe a little more. You see, Herr Oberst, he was a shoemaker in his other life and likes to keep his boots warm and dry and away from the Russian Front so as not to spoil the leather.’
‘Okay, okay, I’ll speak to him.’
‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. He’s a very loyal member of the Party and a true believer in the Führer.’
Jésus, merde alors, this guy was really something! ‘Got any suggestions?’
Becker folded the papers and stuffed them into a pocket. ‘Ten thousand Reichskassenscheine for the little dent you will put in the back of my head.’
‘Ten …’
‘And please don’t bother to go through my pockets looking for it while I’m asleep, since Herr Voegler will most certainly order me to empty them, and I will have tucked your little reward inside my shirt.’
‘Look, you can trust me.’
‘It’s the others who are with you that worry me.’
A cigarette was offered to cement the bargain and then a long pull at the antifreeze of the bottle of three-star cognac that would be used. ‘Another,’ said Becker, ‘and another. It’s always best to take precautions when expecting pain.’
‘Idiot, he’ll accuse you of drinking while on duty!’
‘Please don’t trouble yourself. I’ll leave enough to be showered. That way he won’t think of it, particularly if you take my rifle and cartridge case and I tell him it was the terrorists.’
Mein Gott had things among the troops in Paris really degenerated so far?
‘I’d hurry, if I were you,’ said Becker. ‘Once the mind is made up, it’s best to carry through. Take the walnuts, too. Then I can say the terrorists were after potatoes and made a mistake.’
The guard on Shed fourteen, was not so easy. Retaliating against the rape of a young woman and collusion between the railway police and the Milice, von Schaumburg had placed Wehrmacht sentries two by two with Schmeissers and dogs.
It wasn’t good. Even from a distance this could be seen. Breath billowing from man and beast. Helmets battened down. Greatcoat collars up. Snow softly falling to give the lines of track the uncomfortable look of a lost world just waiting for trouble.
‘You’ve met your match,’ confided Franzie Jünger. ‘Sorry, Herr “Oberst”, but this is too much even for us.’
‘Not at all,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Find the air-raid sirens.’
‘You’re serious.’
‘It’s the only way.’
‘Just what the hell are you really up to, eh? This place will be crawling with wardens and a person such as yourself must know how those bastards behave. If we get arrested for failing to run to the shelters, it’s not only a loss of rank and a few days in the clink. It’s Russia.’
‘I’ll deal with them. This is good. It’s everything I could have hoped for. First the terrorists get the blame for the Gare de Lyon job, and now Old Shatter Hand is going to have to think the guy who brought this stuff in, stole it back!’
‘Who is he and why are you after him?’
‘That’s not your concern.’
‘It is. You see, mein Herr, someone such as yourself, with such easy access to Gestapo Headquarters, must be one of them.’
‘He’s wanted for questioning in a murder investigation.’
‘So you get us to steal his wax and honey?’
‘You ask too many questions. That’s not healthy and you know it. Now find the sirens and let the world hear them. We won’t take everything. We’ll just take what we can. That’ll make it look even better and will seal the rest so tightly, that little Bonze will never get his mitts on it.’
‘You’re a bastard.’
‘The world’s full of them, or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘And this “partner” of yours?’
‘Don’t even ask. He hates guys like you. I don’t. With me, you’ll get what you want.’
‘Amaretto … is that what this is all about? Well, is it?’
‘I need its source.’
‘Ersatz?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that bastard behind the bar at the Brasserie Buerehiesel put you on to me?’
‘Why ask?’
‘To get things straight.’
‘Well?’ demanded Kohler.
‘One of his regulars wanted a bottle. I did it as a favour.’
‘When?’
‘On Tuesday. The customer had to have it in a hurry. Don’t ask me who she was or why. I simply don’t know, but you must, since you mentioned she would like a few tins of my condensed milk for her face.’
‘And you didn’t even bother to tell me,’ sighed Kohler.
‘There were other matters, if I remember it, Herr “Oberst”. The honey and the wax.’
The candle guttered as its flame was quickly teased by the draught that moved constantly through the catacombs. Pinching the flame out, St-Cyr felt molten wax run over his fingers, the smoke smelling strongly of buckwheat honey.
Water dripped. Water hit puddles on the stone floor, and the sound of this was very clear, now near, now far against the muted, constant trickle of a spring.
He was well along the entrance corridor, in pitch darkness, hadn’t called out on entering the pavilion above, had decided to go cautiously, but whoever had been whispering must have sensed his presence.
Feeling his way forward, he remained in darkness. A lantern glowed faintly in the chamber ahead. The sound of the spring was now much clearer.
‘Héloïse, I tell you I heard something,’ came a man’s voice, thick with the accent of the quartier Charonne. Madame Debré, could not as yet be seen.
Yellowish, ochre-brown to grey-white femurs and tibiae were packed solidly, their knuckles facing outwards and all along the chamber’s walls and to its ceiling high above. Shadows from the custodian passed over them and the empty-eyed skulls that grinned from long rows among the bones. Some skulls had a few teeth, most had none; others were without the lower jaw.
Swastikas had been painted in lipstick on the foreheads of many. Two flagrant violations of the regulations sat on the steps of the spring where Jean-Claude Leroux knelt. Army-issue condoms had been stuffed into the eye sockets and dangled limply from them. Grinning lips had been crudely painted on each skull with lipstick also.
‘Bâtards,’ hissed Leroux. ‘Fornicateurs. If I catch them, I’m going to report those fuckers and their putains to the Kommandant von Gross-Paris himself. I’m not going any lower in rank than that!’
He was so worried he was sweating even though he wore an overcoat, was portly and of less than medium height, but with big hands, a broad, flat nose, and wide lips that were grimly turned down. A short, iron wrecking bar, with a nail-pulling hook, lay on the steps next to his right hand.
Hoarfrost had grown on many of the skulls and knuckles, and this caught the light and made them appear as if varnished.
Suddenly the custodian’s shadow flew up over the ceiling. ‘Héloïse, I was speaking to you,’ he whispered urgently.
Removing the navy-blue cap, with its shiny peak and gold braid, he dipped a hand into the Fountain of the Samaritan Woman and wet his brow and the wide dome of an all but bald and greying head. ‘Héloïse, please answer me. Don’t wander off!’
Large, wounded brown eyes glistened as he looked up in surprise at some hidden sound and held his breath. Swallowing hard, Leroux cupped a hand and drank a little. ‘The water is very cold tonight,’ he muttered to himself. ‘But, then, it is always cold.’