Those would then lead him to Jacqueline Lemaire, mistress of Hector Bolduc whose bank van it had been.
Up on the roof, alone if ever she could be alone now, the nougat tin was still where she had hidden it. Surely if he had come up here and found it, that Surete would have taken it, but he hadn’t.
Opening it, she heard herself gasp.
Black and of wrinkled leather, its braided thongs pulled tightly by those two wooden pegs, the pouch lay atop everything, and beneath it as if to emphasize what had happened, was the still wet, white paper packet of twelve flawless brilliants she had been given for herself. He hadn’t taken anything. He had done the only thing he could to make her agree and not go to ground so hard all contact with her would instantly have been severed. He had also left the Opinel with which she had tried to defend herself at l’Abbaye de Vauclair, so must know everything.
Mademoiselle, we need to talk. Please agree to meet at the Jardin d’Hiver of the Jardin des Plantes between 2.30 and 3.30 Tuesday or Wednesday the fifth and sixth. You will know me by a brown suede tobacco pouch, which sadly remains empty but bears the scorched hole of carelessness and the letters AMPHORA. It was a gift of Agnes, my first wife, who had aspirations of my emigrating to America with her and becoming a detective there.
He had even known and trusted that great care would be taken with the note, since it could definitely identify him.
A Surete, a chief inspector, divorced once and married twice.
Funerals were usually in the morning but burials could be in the afternoon depending, of course, on the scheduling, this one being at 1400 hours, Monday’s lunch having been postponed.
‘The quartier de Bercy’s burials are most often here, Hermann, where the departed can listen to the music of the arrivals. Be patient. It’s necessary. God has granted us a reprieve and given us an opportunity.’
‘We won’t get a damned thing out of this bunch and you know it. Bolduc will have seen to that.’
Since losing his sons at Stalingrad, funerals had been difficult for Hermann, the lack of cigarettes simply adding an edge. ‘Well, at least I won’t have to break the news to the families.’
‘You should have let me tear the heart out of Werner Dillmann!’
‘Later. Even a Detektiv Inspektor from the Kripo should know that compromises are often necessary. Quite obviously I needed you here.’
‘Rocheleau is now your sworn enemy.’
‘But where he belongs.’
In a cell at the rue des Saussaies. ‘I did ask Boemelburg to consider him a hostage but he said he’d have to ask Oberg who will, of course, simply tell him to release the salaud. Somehow I’m going to have to get Evangeline out of Rudy de Merode’s clutches before she and that husband of hers sink the two of us for good.’
‘Perhaps she’d be suitable for that one’s escort service?’
Arm in arm, Mademoiselle Jacqueline Lemaire-it couldn’t be Madame Bolduc-was with the owner and president of the Banque Nationale de Credit et Commercial. ‘Who provided the gasoline, Louis. Otherwise the Occupation would have made certain those hearses were drawn by horses or a gazo.’
The Cimetiere de Charenton was just beyond the Gare de Nicolai* and its marshalling yards that fed directly into those of the far larger Gare de Lyon.
‘Since we’re adjacent to the western edge of the Bois de Vincennes, mon vieux, there is at least the joy of its autumn leaves. Bien sur, there are a few maples from Canada, other exotics from elsewhere, but by and large and most welcome are the steadfast oaks and beeches that the Prussians didn’t cut down in 1871 as they did every last tree in the Bois de Boulogne. Perhaps they had it in mind to leave generations of the wealthy and upper middle-class Parisians thinking they were at a loss and envious, while the rest of us had this park.’
Louis always had to have reasons. ‘The driver of that van did have a large family, just as Yvonne Rouget said. That has to be Madame Deniard.’
Seven children were ranked by age and height, and all looked under the age of twelve. ‘Raymond Paquette, the assistant, had six, two sets of twin girls, and two boys, and all under eight.’
‘The first victim and driver of that van bashed on the forehead with a jagged rock and shot in the chest at zero range.’
‘The second, and assistant, in the back of the neck. Would the coffins have been open, do you think?’
Louis would ask. ‘It’s amazing what undertakers can do but you can be sure everyone, including that priest, will have had a damned good look.’
‘Gregoire, the operations manager, but not residing in the bank’s building, as does Mademoiselle Rouget, still takes her arm.’
‘Steadfast like those trees, eh?’
‘And no sign of Madame Bolduc, Hermann, or her daughters, Didi and Yvonne.’
‘Kids don’t like funerals any more than I do, but bankers love to show off their mistresses.’
The clay was gaping. ‘And just like Rocheleau told us of his village priest, this one is adding a final deluge. Let’s not hang around for the sprinklings of soil. Bolduc has arranged for a reception to take your mind off things and get it onto what’s important.’
‘Like the murder of those two and a whole lot else including why our Anna-Marie didn’t want to step into that bank van or any other probably.’
Good for Hermann, Corporal Horace Rivet, custodian of the Berru lookout’s ruins having said, ‘I think her heart fell when she saw it and them.’
LES AMIES FRANCAISES
BUREAU D’HOSTESSES … MLLE JACQUELINE LEMAIRE
DEUTSCHFREUNDLICH, DEUTSCH SPRECHEN
Alone in the corridor-taking a terrible chance to simply stand in front of the frosted glass of that door-Anna-Marie knew all was lost. Everything. The Sorbonne, the job here, the one at the Frontbuchhandlung and at Madame Nicole Bordeaux’s.
She had to run, had to go to ground but couldn’t, mustn’t, would somehow have to work it through and try not to think of the loss of Henk Vandenberg and her parents, but of the promise she had made to Mijnheer Myerhof.
Mademoiselle Lemaire had tried and tried to get her to agree to becoming a ‘hostess’ but had led to Madame Bordeaux and Hector Bolduc whose vans had offered routes into and out of Paris without the need for laissez-passers and sauf-conduits.
Miliciens, PPF and others-those vans had been freighting them all so why not herself, Aram Bedikian had asked and said, ‘You have to.’
And she had on that first trip to visit her ‘mother’ in Rethel shy; last December though never again, but on the return with Etienne, Arie and Frans, something that no one could have foreseen had happened. Bien sur, a roadblock control, but not a spotter plane and then, there in defiance of her ever having to use one of those again, had been that van at the ruins of the Berru lookout.
Etienne hadn’t known, and she hadn’t been able to tell him. She had simply said, ‘L’Abbaye de Vauclair,’ because she had known of it and a tiny village like Corbeny would have offered dangers of its own, and to do what they’d had in mind, those two would have stopped somewhere before it anyway.
Somehow she had to move her things-she couldn’t just leave everything and take only the diamonds and the scraps from home. Yet if she were to take even a suitcase, Monsieur Figeard would know at once that she was not coming back, no matter what she said.
She must ‘return the bike,’ as she had told him, must then ‘take the metro back but later.’
And that Surete? she asked herself.
That decision would have to be up to Felix and Aram and the others-FTP, all of them, and submarines as well.