‘I’ll speak to him. Arie and I are both sorry your fiance was killed. We do know that he was found hiding in the red-light district on 20 July and that he deliberately ran from the Boche knowing, probably, that if he didn’t, he might have given away the alias you’ve been using in Paris.’
‘Josef wouldn’t have told you that.’
Not Mijnheer Meyerhof. ‘Or that Henk Vandenberg’s body lay in the Oudezijds Achterburgwal for the rest of that day and night until two of the Grune Politei threw him into the canal?’
The ‘green police’ due to the grey-green colour of their uniforms, the Feldgendarme, the military police. ‘Who told you all of this? Frans? And if so, how, please, did he find out?’
Again the urge to show him the coin was there but if she did, he would then find out what Mijnheer Meyerhof had asked her to do.
This package of theirs was tough, felt Labrie, but maybe a little softening up would help. ‘Meyerhof’s son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren were among those arrested and deported on 11 September. The reason we know is because, during his subsequent interrogation, the son was so badly beaten, he didn’t survive, but of course they couldn’t resist showing the father a photo of him, for “identification purposes.”’
And that must be why Mijnheer Meyerhof, on seeing her unexpectedly turn up to walk by the ghetto, had called out to her and then had asked what he had, but that dear man hadn’t said a word of this. It had been a terrible round-up in Nice, far worse even than that of the grande rafle in Paris on July 16 and 17 of last year. In Nice and elsewhere in that Italian zone, more than 30,000 had been very quickly arrested and deported.
‘Now I’ll ask you once more, Anna-Marie, because I really do need to know exactly why the Boche are after you so hard.’
She couldn’t tell him about the diamonds she had been carrying, but something would have to be yielded. ‘Josef Meyerhof was the director of the Amsterdam protection committee that policed the trade and had drawn up a blacklist of all those dealers who were selling to the Reich. For years London has been the trading and distribution centre for rough stones, especially those for jewellery, which were then sent across the Channel to the cutting works in Amsterdam and Antwerp, where we also did the industrials for them and others. In turn, we then sent finished stones back, but never once did the British think to establish their own works since that would have meant bringing in the skilled Jewish workmen we had. Finally the cutting tables and other equipment were got ready for shipment and sent to Rotterdam but at the last moment, during the Blitzkrieg, the city was hit and they were never sent. Mijnheer Meyerhof will have that list.’
‘But did he give it to you?’
Though a lie, her nod would be brief, her right hand firmly extended, that fist still clenched with its coin. ‘I don’t trust Frans Oenen. I can’t. You see, I think I’ve seen him before.’
‘Where?’
‘The Hollandsche Schouwburg.’
‘He escaped from there and we know that.’
‘When?’
And still suspicious. ‘When the Boche renamed it in October 1941, they weren’t too careful at first and left its stage doors and fire escape unguarded. Several escaped and were soon rounded up or shot, but Paul Klemper has been on the run ever since and we were able to verify this. He’s good at it, Anna-Marie. He has had to be and has helped us several times because he can act the part of anyone he wants and is an absolute natural.’
Withdrawing her fist, she would shove that coin back into her trouser pocket and tell him only, ‘I’m sorry I mistrusted him. It’s been hard living like this, and I’m still trying to get over finding out that my Henki was betrayed. He was goodness itself and I loved him dearly. Those shoes I left in that van were to have been worn at our wedding, brief as that would have been.’
‘Those shoes really are a problem, Louis.’
‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’
No one had bothered them at l’Abbaye de Vauclair, felt Kohler. They’d had the place entirely to themselves and still did. Having found a suitable spot among the ruins, Louis had arranged, on a low and remnant wall, the bits and pieces of this investigation so that they could have a look at everything. Side by side were the shoes. Next came that single blonde hair tucked safely into one of them, then the champagne cork from that snapped-off bottle in the van, it being a clear reminder of the one he had found on her bedside table.
The white paper packet with its woollen thread followed, and then that little black leather bag, and only after those, the cartridge casings, slugs, poultice, megot tin, coins, charred bits of identity papers and finally the Opinel that had been found near the first victim, the one she had hit with a rock. And if that didn’t say something about her, what did?
Adding a scattering of small banknotes to represent what had been stolen from the van, Kohler laid out the white linen waistband he had found secreted in a knothole not far from the spring. Refilling their glasses, he said, ‘Salut, mon vieux. She’s really something, isn’t she?’
The wine was magnificent. ‘A treasure in itself, Hermann, and not unlike what must have been in the half of the Chateau Latour she shared with Armand Figeard, her concierge after her first trip “home.” Delicate yet full-bodied, elegant yet of great finesse and always delightfully giving those lingering touches of mystery. The Kommandant von Gross-Paris has done us proud. The vineyard this came from was first laid out in the reign of Louis XV.’
There were two bottles of the Chateau Margaux premier grand cru, the 1913. ‘If I didn’t know better, Louis, I’d say Boineburg-Lengsfeld knew of Hector Bolduc’s penchant for buying land in the Haut-Medoc, Cote d’Argent and Cote Sud des Landes.’
‘Since the Kommandant von Gross-Paris must know of the Banque Nationale de Credit et Commercial and its president, he might at that, but me I’m inclined to think he simply wanted to remind us of the Abwehr’s past and to encourage us to work together in defiance of Kaltenbrunner and the SD.’
They’d eat in a few moments, felt Kohler: a pate en croute to be followed by the soupe de Puy, a puree of green lentils, with potatoes, leeks, carrots, cabbage, and afterward, a casserole of haricot beans with thinly sliced, tightly rolled pork that, with the baguettes, would, in itself, be magnificent. A salade lyonnaise, tarte aux prunes, Calvados and real coffee were to finish things off, but sadly no extra tobacco, only two cigars. ‘Maybe he really is on our side, but we’d better not presume too much.’
Wise words. ‘But is it that Kaltenbrunner’s Sonderkommando knew of the life diamonds, Hermann? Is it that they allowed her to take them?’
‘Hence the worried stomach, the bitters and a no-name boss, but a rather dangerous thing to have done if the outcome isn’t successful. That Spitzel of theirs must have been told to let her run and lead them to something far, far bigger.’
‘The so-called “black” diamonds, are those what this is all about?’
The rumors, the whispers, the voracious claims had all been written off as utter nonsense by most. That the Dutch and Belgian dealers could have hidden huge stashes of diamonds seemed impossible, given that virtually all, if not all of them and their families had been arrested, interrogated and then deported, they and their suitcases and homes and factories having been thoroughly searched, even to ripping up the floors and going through the clothing they had worn.
‘Geheime Reichssache, Louis.’