‘Perhaps if you were to tell me what was needed, Inspector, I could find them, since one of my jobs is to look after these and I might, I confess, have misplaced a pair under her bed or behind a settee or armoire, she having kicked them off in a hurry with one of her lovers.’
And a treasure. The shoes were perfect. Neither too big, nor too small, equally expensive and of but a slightly lighter shade of blue.
‘Will Madame really have her name splashed in the papers?’
‘Certainly. Invaluable assistance like this is always acknowledged. That encourages others to come forward.’
‘Then if the shoes, they are not returned, madame she will remain pleased and grateful.’
A further 5,000-franc note was found. ‘Just don’t tell her until after the news breaks that we’ve finally apprehended the killer.’
‘And the others also, n’est-ce pas, especially the mistress?’
Jesus merde alors was another 5,000-franc note being demanded shy;? ‘Them, too, but what’s that scent you’re wearing?’
That such a one should ask such a thing could only mean a tenderness hidden. ‘Guerlain’s Coque d’Or. Madame, she will wear no other. It’s her signature and therefore that of myself and all the others, even Madame Volnee, so as to avoid any conflict.’
And the phial shaped like two truncated eggs standing side by side in gold with black covers and the central stopper in gold and bearing the name at the bottom, the design by Baccarat probably in the late 1930s.
Herr Kohler even held the phial as if what it contained was definitely appreciated.
‘That partner of mine, Yvette, thinks he’s an expert. Take any perfume and all he needs is a whiff to pin it down. Rose absolute, jasmine, clary sage and you name it. Splash a little on a white handkerchief, preferably one with a bit of embroidery. Tulips and daffodils, that sort of thing, and let me see if he’s right.’
She would press the flat of her hand against the left side of his chest and would look up into those faded, lying blue eyes of his. ‘Then that must, I’m afraid, be entirely one of my own.’
And yet another 5,000-franc note.
‘Are those the shoes Eugene found in that bank van?’ asked Evangeline.
‘They are, but I thought you had better have a good look at them just to be sure. Try them on. Maybe they really do fit.’
The room in the Salle Pleyel building was as before, felt St-Cyr, its austerity all the more evident since the risk of doing anything was far too great. By simply taking Concierge Figeard into his confidence, he had already placed not only Giselle and Oona at far greater risk, but Gabrielle too, and all who were close to them, Hermann as well, and Chantal and Muriel. Every linkage Annette-Melanie Veroche had forged said emphatically that she had to have been, and still was, no doubt, affiliated with an FTP equipe or some other such Resistance group. Help given on first arrival in Paris, false papers and all the rest, in exchange for help demanded. Watch, listen and report all you hear and see, and go back time and again. Ingratiate yourself and find out all you can.
And yet no one in that equipe could really know her true self nor what she had hidden. He would have to say it softly, as if she was with him. ‘Kriminalrat Ludin is under huge pressure, mademoiselle, and will have no other choice than to call in reinforcements. Hermann and myself have no intention of telling him anything, but it’s only a matter of time until Sergei Lebeznikov, on seeing one of those twenty-by-twenty photos of you from the Hague, tumbles to who he and his son have been taking to dinner. You will, unfortunately, have made a laughingstock of him, something both he and Rudy de Merode will definitely not appreciate.’
If left on the bed in full view, the shoes would immediately cause her to grab that cardboard suitcase and head for the roof, pausing only to recover the nougat tin.
If left in the armoire with the dress, the same. Indeed, no matter what he did here, she would still head for that tin since Concierge Figeard, though trying hard not to indicate such, would inadvertently, through gesture or word, let her know there had been a visitor. But perhaps it was that she would never be allowed to return here even if that passeur did manage to get her into Paris, since that Dutch mouchard would stay far too close to her and would have to.
Frans hadn’t backed off, felt Anna-Marie. As soon as she had come downstairs to supper in the kitchen, he had been waiting for her, surrounded by its everyday warmth and welcoming aromas. Sensing discord, Madame de Belleveau had insisted that Frans was to sit next to herself at the far end of the table to give as much distance as possible, but Frans was far too quick and took Etienne’s place. Not even asking, he uncorked le rouge and filled her glass. ‘Salut!’ he said. No grin, no smile, just: Say anything and see what happens.
The potage parisien, that standby of every French household, whether on the farm or not, reminded her of home so much, she felt like bursting into tears. She couldn’t let Frans betray them but he was watching her far too closely. Was it fear that what was troubling him, though he had the only gun, or was it that he simply saw her as someone in the theatre with whom to compete? Oh for sure, to succeed as he had, talent had been needed, but that alone would not have been enough. The ability to lie convincingly would have been necessary, the twisting of things said or done, the denigrating of others whenever possible. ‘He’s good, that boy,’ Papa had said of him, ‘but I pity the women he encounters.’
Salome, Herod’s daughter, and Herodias, that one’s wife.
When Arie arrived, he set her walking shoes on the floor beside her and with but the flash of an engagingly mischievous grin, said, ‘They might hold up, but you never can tell with shoes. One lace will break when you’ve already tied two knots. Then the other one goes, or a seam will split, or a heel come off just when you’re racing to catch a bus or get to a film.’
He had even polished them and had made replacement laces out of leather thongs he’d worked on to get them to match the rest and not look too out of place even though lots in Paris were having to wear far worse.
‘No more Klompen, eh?’ quipped Frans.
‘Arie, merci bien. They’re perfect.’ He had even cut insoles out of felt. Always he was doing something useful, had sawn and split lots of stove wood for Madame and would probably like nothing better than to work the land she must have leased to another who hadn’t needed the barns and farmyard that were well behind the potager.
They would eat and when it came on, listen to the nine o’clock news from the BBC in London, the wireless secreted in a cupboard behind things, the aerial strung only for those times. The penalty, prison of course, or death.
The soup was perfect. ‘Some chopped chives, perhaps,’ her father would have said. ‘A little of the goudse boerenkaas. Just a slice or two to nibble on and stop us from slurping too much.’ The farmers’ gouda, the edammer kaas as well.
She couldn’t let it happen. She mustn’t.
The chicken was superb, the sauteed potatoes Arie’s favourite as they would have been her father’s. He even cleaned the frying pan with a bit of bread, she herself having failed entirely to have touched her wine. ‘You sure are worrying,’ he said. ‘It’s completely shy; understandable, but we will get you into Paris and I’ll see that one of the bikes in the back has a Paris licence.’
And no tag stating that it, and the others, had been requisitioned by the Occupier in Liege, and then stolen from them. There were a dozen, but also ten-kilo bags of roasted, ground Belgian chicory root for coffee substitute, Ardennes hams, chocolates, pipe and cigarette tobacco, Trappist beer from Chimay, too, and the flat, round cheeses of those monks, eggs in water glass as well and lots of other things. ‘Arie …’