6
‘A kilo of what, Louis, in addition to the one of boart you condescended to tell me of at Chez Rudi’s?’
‘Don’t get huffy.’
They had arrived in Corbeny and had stopped near the ruins of its medieval abbey and tiny museum only because Louis, being Louis, had insisted. ‘Just tell me.’
‘Bien sur, certainement. Virtually all of the kings of France came here the day after their consecration in Reims cathedral. Even Jeanne d’Arc on her white charger, no doubt. You see, mon vieux, the relics of Saint Marcou were here and venerated for his having had the power to cure scrofula, the “king’s evil.”’
‘And what the hell is that?’
‘Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands. A sore neck.’
‘And I think I’ve already asked you a far more pertinent question. Ludin won’t have been happy with our having buggered off. He’ll retaliate. It’s in the Hamburg psyche. Those people are even moving back into the heart of their dead city. Never mind the stench of the countless corpses that still have to be found and removed. Never mind the smoke, the rubble, the living in some cellar, if possible, or even the signs that tell them it’s absolutely forbidden to enter that area without a special pass.’
Almost a million had been evacuated from that city, thus spreading the terror throughout the Reich, but unfortunately it was no time to broaden Hermann’s understanding of French history. ‘About a kilo of mixed stones of up to a carat or two, but often less, and all useful either in jewellery or as industrials.’
‘Borderlines are what you want to call them, mein lieber Franzosischer Oberdetektiv. Of equal value either as one or the other. They require sorting too.’
‘And were probably swept off that table and into their little bag even as the Blitzkrieg descended on the city.’
‘Of Amsterdam.’
‘Her father may not have been the only one in the family to have been employed by Diamant Meyerhof, Hermann.’
‘That the one who insisted on her using a passeur and paying for it?’
Merde, and still huffy. ‘Unless we meet her, we may never know.’
Fortunately Hermann was able to find a much crumpled emergency cigarette. Impatiently straightening and lighting it, he took two deep drags before handing it over.
‘An informant, Louis, a spotter plane, a control that causes far too much trouble for far too many, a Sonderkommando, a wrecked lingerie shop, two hostages taken so as to threaten the hell out of me, and now two kilos of what the Reich most desperately need. What else is Anna-Marie Vermeulen carrying?’
‘I really did try to tell you it was a minefield.’
‘And I’ve just let you know of that Kriminalrat’s psyche.’
Hermann hadn’t even noticed the emptiness of the village. Oh for sure, there were the farms and the harvest to consider, yet still there should have been someone about. ‘With a population of around 350, mon vieux, they are all, apparently, out in the fields.’
‘Having heard and seen the car, just like our Anna-Marie would have noted, they’ve buggered off to stay in the fields with the others, but have now turned their backs on us, even the kids.’
A bad sign.
‘Let’s go and say hello to a certain garde champetre and his wife, Louis. Maybe they can shed a little light on things. Evangeline was her name.’
The tabac, the general store, PTT and cafe-bar were all in one room, with no one even behind the wicket of the Poste, Telegraphe et Telephone.
Hitting the bell didn’t awaken anyone. Hitting it again finally brought the curves, the long and shaken-loose auburn hair, the deep-brown, made-up eyes and the slip with its plunging neckline and off-the-shoulder strap, the rabbit-fur slippers and the generous smile.
‘Messieurs,’ she asked, a hand now to her thirty-three-year-old throat, ‘qu’est-ce que vous desirez? A glass of wine, a cup of coffee or a little something else?’
The chalkboard even gave the additional business of ‘poulets, lapins, oeufs,’ but Hermann would be putty in her hands. ‘Your husband, madame. St-Cyr of the Surete, Kohler of the Kripo.’
So this was the one Eugene had saved on the battlefield. This was the one whose second wife, it was said, had made the grand cuckold of him, he having forgiven her. ‘Father Adrien will know where he is. Me, I think you will find that one in his church and down on his knees before God, seeing as he’s been a thief and fears that other Gestapo is going to come back for him.’
‘What other Gestapo?’ demanded Hermann.
Ah bon, that had got them interested. ‘The one who drives a car like yours but drinks from little bottles like this.’
‘Ah Christ, Louis, stomach bitters.’
Father Adrien was indeed on his knees, bare of back and applying the willow switch. Beside him were three upright bottles of the vin rouge, one of which was empty, one half-full and the other still sealed. And beside these, were two bundles of 5,000-franc notes from a hastily emptied poor box.
‘Let’s leave him, Louis. Let’s let God handle it.’
The hour of decision. The Church could be mighty. ‘Agreed.’
Again, and then again, Hermann rang the bell, Evangeline Rocheleau appearing in a sleeveless hip-clinging, made-over woollen dress of the latest Paris design, its hem at just above the knees, but obviously there hadn’t been time to sew in a zipper or the more usual buttons.
‘Me, I thought you would come back,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I wanted to go to Paris too. Maman, she owns the shop, helps with the PTT and lives with us, so there wouldn’t have been any problem, but that other one with the car, his stomach was too acid. “An important meeting,” he yelled, or something like that in his language. “A confrontation,” peut-etre.’
The weather had been perfect, felt St-Cyr, the day like a pleasurable journey into the countryside until now. ‘God always has to pull out all the stops, Hermann. It’s in his nature.’
‘Finish the dress, madame. Pack a few things. This partner of mine and I will pick you up when we’ve done what we have to. Let’s give that husband of yours a nice surprise.’
The image of lost lives and causes was all too apparent in the ruins of l’Abbaye de Vauclair, and when they had reached the spring, the falling leaves were caught in the water and rushed along. Ferns threw shadows over the grey flagstone that girl had lifted, Hermann finally breaking the silence that had suddenly overwhelmed them. ‘She was on the run and terrified, Louis, would have had only one good hand yet had the sense not only to find the perfect place but to leave no trace of herself.’
‘Is remarkable. You or me?’
‘Both. Let’s leave nothing for that Kriminalrat to find.’
In unison, the slab was tilted, letting the water well up behind it and over what she had hidden, Louis sucking in a troubled breath and saying, ‘The Ashkenazim, Hermann.’
‘The generations of one family, starting way back when?’
‘Maybe in the 1700s, maybe earlier.’
‘Yet kept hidden always, even from those of their own because only then would the “life” they held be secure.’
Creased and worn, wrinkled and old yet methodically oiled over the years, the plain and simple black leather bag, not quite the size of a clenched fist, had a braided tie of the same with two worn wooden pegs at the ends.