‘Then you had been following her?’ he asked.
‘Yes … Yes, I was following her. Sometimes.’
St-Cyr reached out to the stove to strike the match. A cloud of tobacco smoke billowed about him; he waved it away. ‘For the Resistance?’ he asked sharply. ‘Come, come, Marianne, to me you can speak the truth and it would be best if you did so that I can help you and the others if necessary, and keep my Gestapo partner or anyone else from learning of your connection with the case.’
The Resistance! Maudit! What would they think of next? he wondered.
Her backside needed warming. She would turn to face him boldly now, this detective from the Surete whose shabby overcoat had been ripped and whose hand had been cut.
‘Christabelle wasn’t the target, monsieur.’ She gave a brave smile. ‘He was. The man she had been meeting for sexual favours, the one who had bought the use of her body. M Antoine Audit, the industrialist and the maker of explosives, Inspector. Explosives and parachute silk for the Nazi’s!’
Her breasts heaved with the force of her young words. Her fists clenched.
‘We … our group … myself … that is Georges and myself …’ It would do no good to try to hide the truth from this one. Merde! Had he no sympathy for tears, no interest in her naked body, nothing in his heart for a young girl in distress and trapped by him? Had he only the cold brown eyes of a whoremaster choosing his whore?
‘Your group? Come, come, out with it, Mademoiselle St-Jacques.’
He would hit her now, slap her, tear her by the hair and beat her! ‘We were going to assassinate him. Georges -’
‘Georges Lagace is nothing, mademoiselle. Nothing! A baker trapped by the dough of your stupid, stupid scheming. Now quickly, the rest, before madame the drawing mistress begins to pound on the door.’ Assassination! Merde! Did they not know the SS and the Gestapo would most certainly have caught them?
She would lift her eyes proudly to his, she would let him see how brave she was. ‘Georges was my dead sister’s husband. He’s weak and yes, you are correct, he is innocent. He didn’t want any part of things, but we forced him into letting me stay with him when … whenever the girl … whenever she went to be with her industrialist.’
‘Are you a Communist?’ he asked. The answer was fiercely given in the affirmative and he gave a sigh at the stupidity of the young, for the Nazis hated the Communists almost as much as they hated the Jews. ‘How did it all start?’ he asked.
She gave a shrug, unconsciously rubbing the base of her throat and between her breasts. ‘We’d been kicking things over – the need to do something. Anything! The topic of those industrialists who are co-operating so well with the Nazis came up. I’d been to visit Georges a few times. One night I met Christabelle quite by accident. Things began to fall into place. Last summer I saw Audit for the first time in the rue Polonceau and then my friends showed me photographs of him and some of his factories. He … he was to have been our choice.’
Antoine Audit. ‘Did he ever suspect this, do you think?’ he asked, letting her detect the note of caution that had crept into his voice.
She shook her head. ‘I was very careful, as were the others.’
I’ll bet you were! he said to himself with a sigh. ‘I don’t suppose you possess a gun, a pistol perhaps – a nine millimetre Luger, eh?’
His shoes were muddy. One lace had come undone. If he was Gestapo-friendly, he’d have arrested her by now.
She filled her lungs. ‘I … I do not do such things. I’m only used as a courier or to keep a watch on someone. It’s better for a girl. There’s always less suspicion.’
St-Cyr gently lifted her chin. The skin of her throat would be so soft. The wire would cut into it. Why … why must he see her as in death? Was there nothing he could do?
‘Please don’t lie to me, mademoiselle. You left Georges just as the curfew ended. You rode down the rue Polonceau on that bicycle of yours. Schraum, a corporal in the German Army, accosted you. He was drunk. He caught hold of your bicycle. You fell, you cried out as he came at you. You had no choice – no choice, eh? It was kill or be taken!’
He dropped his hand. ‘You’ve a scrape on your leg. It’s evidence enough.’
The misty eyes were steady. ‘I did not kill him. I did not see him. I did not even hear the shot, monsieur. We weren’t involved in that business.’
Merde! she was still being difficult! ‘Who left the note for Father Eugene?’
‘A friend. All right, one of us, but only after the hostages had been taken.’
The hostages … The drawing mistress was standing in the doorway, waiting for the girl. They’d not heard the knock the woman must have given.
‘A moment, please, madame. Please. Get out!’
The impasse fell back on them. ‘A last few questions, Marianne. The Captain Dupuis, the veteran with one leg. Did Christabelle ever mention him to you? Was she not perhaps a little afraid of him?’
The girl shook her head. ‘She said Dupuis was obviously quite interested in her but that he could never get up the courage to speak to her. Me, I think his attentions mildly amused her. I had the feeling that she knew all about men and what they wanted of a girl.’
‘And Roland Minou, the son of the concierge at that hotel? Did you ever see him lurking about? Did she ever mention him?’
Again she shook her head. ‘This one I do not know. Christabelle came always in the evening, at around eight or nine, so he could have been some place else.’
Or was simply too clever to have let himself be seen.
‘What about a Corsican? A man of sixty-three or so? Please, it is vital, mademoiselle. Think! You must remember.’
‘A Corsican …? But she has met only the industrialist?’
The frown deepened, the left cheek of her seat was unconsciously scratched, first towards the hip and then a little further back.
‘Well, what is it?’ he asked.
‘The villa at Number twenty-three. I … I saw her stepping out from its courtyard once. As I came along the street, she turned quickly away towards the door, but did not touch it, monsieur. It closed by itself, and when I asked her who she’d met in there, she said no one, that she had simply gone into the courtyard to see what it looked like.’
‘Did this occur before or after her meeting with the industrialist?’
‘Before. At … at about eight-thirty. It was warm. There were still lots of people about. They would have taken no notice of her, they would have thought she’d simply got the wrong address.’
But you knew she’d left her purse in there, didn’t you, eh? and you’re not about to tell me this.
It made him sad to think she still didn’t trust him. ‘That place used to be her grandfather’s house. Did she ever mention him or the carousel?’
‘No … no, she never mentioned those. A carousel…?’
‘A canary?’
The girl looked away. ‘A canary. Yes … yes, I once saw her with it. A little bird that had been mounted by the taxidermist, you understand. She was stroking it, so lost in thought she did not hear me and when she did, she put it quickly away in a pocket.’
‘Take Georges’ advice. Don’t go near him. Do absolutely nothing but your work here and in the hat shop. Stay indoors after curfew. Keep out of draughts and tell your friends to do so as well. The heat is on. I’ll be in touch.’
Only then did she clasp her breasts to feel them rise and fall in the sigh she gave.
He’d closed the door behind him. He’d given her a few brief moments in which to compose herself.
He’d not asked if she had ever been in that room of Christabelle’s or inside the Villa Audit, or why the girl had met her grandfather and the Corsican at the Cafe Noir on the avenue de Laumiere near the parc des Buttes-Chaumont.
Or why the girl had taken the canary out of her pocket and had quietly stroked it as the two men had talked so earnestly to her about things. A young girl, a dark-haired girl who had dyed her hair like that – why, why had she done so?