The first of the two other cars had but four occupants. Merode, having rolled the side window down, was behind the wheel and exhaling cigarette smoke while impatiently flicking ash, the suit, pink tie, gold fountain pens and swastika pin the same. ‘Shoes is it, Kohler? Shoes that were left in a certain bank van by a girl that SD colonel is after? Shoes whose leather seems to have changed from a dark blue to a much lighter shade?’
Shit! Rocheleau, stern, smugly unforgiving and quite obviously shy; unyielding, was in the back beside Van Houten, a known sadist and another of Rudy’s ‘Neuilly Gestapo.’
Weak, slack, her lips parted as if carnally guilt-ridden and definitely afraid of what that husband of hers might well do to her, felt Kohler, Evangeline Rocheleau turned away rather than let him see her like this. But her left hand was still resting atop Rudy’s right, which had found, not her knee, but thigh, he having rucked up the hem of her dress.
‘Madame Rocheleau insists that having never seen the original pair, she must have been mistaken, Kohler, so why not tell us before we let her burst that peptic ulcer of Heinrich Ludin’s?’
It was Louis who said, ‘Eugene Rocheleau, garde champetre of Corbeny?’
‘You know it’s me,’ countered Rocheleau, having leaned forward, ‘but I no longer work for the gendarmerie. I have a new and far better job.’
‘Good, that’s marvellous but neither here nor there. Please step out of the car.’
Uh-oh. ‘Louis …’
‘Hermann, be so kind as not to interrupt a chief inspector in the process of carrying out his duties. This one not only tampered with evidence, he attempted to steal five bundles of 5,000-franc notes, for a total of no less than 2.5 million francs.’
‘And ten tins of sardines, Chief, two coils of smoked sausage, six half-kilos of real coffee, two handfuls of fake black truffles and two rounds of the Brie de Meaux.’
All of which, noticed Lebeznikov, had come from Kohler’s little black notebook, St-Cyr having placed the envelope he had been given by the avenue Foch atop the car.
Yanking the back door open, that Surete dragged Rocheleau out and flung him up against the car to slap the bracelets on.
‘Don’t!’ said Kohler, having swung the shotgun toward the Russian. ‘Just leave that envelope where it is since it’s clearly stamped “top secret.”’
Photos … Did it contain ones of that girl and the other two? wondered Lebeznikov. If only he could …
‘The rue des Saussaies, Hermann. It’s the cellars for this one,’ said Louis, and hustling Rocheleau to the Citroen, shoved him into the backseat.
‘Kohler, listen to me,’ urged Merode, his gaze still on Louis, ‘this thing, it has to be big, n’est-ce pas? Thousands and thousands of carats of gem diamonds and industrials. Plenty to share and no one here or in Berlin the wiser.’
‘Or it’s all a lot of hot air, eh?’
Merde, but what would break the bastard? ‘There was an embroidered handkerchief with a name on it. “Anna,” I believe-wasn’t that what your husband said, Evangeline?’
‘Anna, yes, and … and something beginning with a V, he thought.’
‘Really, Kohler, it wasn’t kind of you to have got the Kommandant von Gross-Paris to consign that PPF hit squad to shovelling concrete on the Channel Islands, but even so, we are willing to let bygones be bygones. We’ve had the shop of those two old lesbians repaired, as asked, and have even left them with 250,000 francs in case anything was missed or stolen.’
There was only one way to stop them, felt Kohler. Reaching for the envelope, taking the letter out of his jacket pocket as if from it, he said, ‘Then perhaps you’d better read this. It’s from the Reichssicherheitschef and definitely tells you or anyone else to leave Louis and me alone to do the job we’ve been assigned.’
Putain de merde, even Heinrich Ludin couldn’t go against such an order. ‘Ah bon, mon ami, we’ll do as requested, of course, but continue to look ourselves, and if we should find her, why you can be sure we’ll ask a few questions before turning her over to the proper authorities.’
‘Monsieur Figeard, c’est moi. I’m back. How have you been? The chest, that cough, the sacroiliac? Did you go to Madame Duclos, the masseuse, as I told you to?’
Several broken matches attested to his having finally got his pipe alight. Startled, he looked up. ‘Ah Sainte Mere, is it really you, mademoiselle? A week, you thought. Ten days at most, and now the fourth of the month? Your dear mother … The funeral … Come in and sit down. Tell me everything. Let me have it while it’s still fresh. Lean the bike against the corridor wall. No one will say a thing.’
‘It’s not mine. I borrowed it from a friend and must return it.’
A friend … A bike that had been made in Liege, but with a Paris licence that would have taken weeks. ‘Did she suffer?’
‘Maman? No, not at all. Indeed, she has recovered fully. That’s why I’m late. The doctors all said it was because I had come to see her again and had stayed constantly at her bedside that she made such a miraculous recovery. Me, I’m just happy all my prayers were answered. Now tell me, please, how have the rabbits and the chickens been? Have they missed me?’
‘Your hand … What have you done?’
Zut, she would forget, and like the good friend he was, he would notice. ‘Ah, it’s nothing. I just fell and cut myself on some gravel. It’s fine. The stitches are to come out tomorrow.’
Stitched but not with cat gut, with what looked to be fishing line, but what should he do? wondered Figeard. Continue the charade or tell her what had happened in her absence?
Setting his pipe aside, he said, ‘That boy, mademoiselle. That subdeacon, he’s been here time and again and claims he intends to ask you to marry him.’
‘Marry … ? Pierre-Alexandre? But … but I hardly know him.’
‘My thoughts exactly. I tried to tell him, but the Russians, they can be very persistent. Apparently subdeacons must decide whether to marry or not before they are made deacons and never thereafter.’
‘And all because I was able to obtain a little rosemary from one of the gardeners at the Jardin des Plantes? It’s insane, Monsieur Figeard. We have hardly spoken.’
‘And not even at those dinners he and his father took you to?’
Why had he to ask? ‘Me, I knew it was a mistake to agree to let him and his father take me there. Oh for sure, the food it was magnificent and extremely expensive. Once perhaps, but twice … What am I to do?’
‘Tell him he’s crazy.’
‘Of course. You’re absolutely right.’
It would have to be said, felt Figeard. It simply couldn’t be avoided. ‘There was another visitor.’
Another.
Sickened, alarmed-ready to run if necessary-this girl he had trusted like a daughter, this Annette-Melanie Veroche, waited for him to continue. ‘A Surete. Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr.’
Ah merde, merde, it had finally happened! ‘Why?’
She had even darted a look behind and along the corridor. ‘Please, mademoiselle, there is no reason for you to worry. Apparently they think you must have witnessed the murder of two bank employees and the partial robbery of their van. They will only want to hear what you have to say about it.’
‘They?’
It would be best to just say, ‘The Surete.’
Side by side, and looking as if Frans had put them there to mock her, the shoes were in the armoire beneath that incredibly soft and beautiful dress, but the one would lead to the other and that Surete would soon find that she had had a part-time job every second Sunday at the cultural-exchange gatherings of Madame Nicole Bordeaux.