She was going to have to listen. ‘Mademoiselle, you’re perfect for him and come very highly recommended by the very best of Parisian society. The boy’s desperate. If you won’t marry him, he’s determined to leave the Church and I can’t have that. Not with the way things are developing.’
Things … ‘He’s safe here, is that what you mean?’
‘You will be too. The Church guarantees it, and you’ll have everything you need. A flat in Neuilly, a place in the south, cash in the bank and lots more.’
‘Please, I really must go. I will speak to him later, I promise.’
‘Can I tell him you’ll think seriously of it?’
‘Of course. If that will help, then certainly.’
‘Now I must rush off myself to the rue de Vaugirard and Porte de Versailles. An Oberfeldwebel who’s been up to mischief. Be good to Pierre-Alexandre. Be gentle. He really is smitten with you, and I don’t think either of us would want to see him hurt.’
The rue de Vaugirard and not far from the rue Vercingetorix. That coin Frans should have had in his pockets but hadn’t. An Oberfeldwebel.
At 1650 hours the Porte de Versailles was busy, noted Kohler, but when dealing with the venomous even detectives who have shown mercy in the past had better tread carefully. Finding a cafe with a view, he ordered a coffee. Dillmann was doing the usual. Dillmann didn’t give a damn about anything else, even to ratting on them to Ludin about the partnership’s probably meeting up at Chez Rudi’s during Saturday’s cinq a sept. If he had to, Dillmann would probably choke his mother or sell his sister. These days, he had never had it so good.
Three of the Tabac National’s trucks were sent on their way with a rap on the hood and, ‘Ach, I’ll see you later.’ A farm truck, a gazo, took more time. After all, there were papers to glance at, questions to be asked, and were the flics and the Vichy food controllers taking any notice? But would this one and those tobacco trucks be sent to the horse abattoir, or had that son of a bitch changed his drop-off?
Without a cigarette to nurse, Kohler knew he could only wait and be reminded of Schutze Hartmann and those from the previous encounter. Having dropped Louis and Jacqueline Lemaire off at the Salle Pleyel, he had gone straight to Boemelburg’s villa in Neuilly. That letter from Kaltenbrunner had worked its magic-he’d only to show that SD Head Office stamp and that signature-but it had been a mistake, of course. Oona and Giselle were being well looked after but had been more than anxious and not just about themselves, about Anna-Marie, and he’d known he’d have to be truthful. Somehow Louis and he were going to have to get them out of there and away from Heinrich Ludin.
All of which meant first dealing with this cobra.
When a black Citroen traction avant exactly like the one he had parked out of sight on the boulevard Lefebvre nearby, headed shy; in to have a word, he knew the worst. Sergei Lebeznikov was greeting that bastard as though a long lost friend. Questions were being asked and talked over, answers too readily given, the agreement settled with but a clap on the back and handshake.
Louis would have said, God really doesn’t care, Hermann. There are always two sides to any coin.
And we’re not on either, he’d have replied. There was nothing for it but to try the horse abattoir and hope it was still being used. Anna-Marie Vermeulen had sure dug a hole for them and with no bottom in sight, was it to be nothing but a free fall?
‘Monsieur Figeard, what is this you are saying?’
That ten minutes had stretched into a half-hour, and having lied to him again and again as she must have, did this girl he had trusted deserve anything further? wondered Figeard. ‘Mademoiselle Veroche, you have challenged my very judgement, and certainly if he were to know that I had even listened to you, Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Surete would be grateful.’
Grateful? ‘Please just tell me. To stand out here on the street with my bike is not good. Pierre-Alexandre, he has refused to listen and might …’
‘Was that his father who roared by earlier in that car with those other two?’
‘It was.’
‘And having “witnessed” two murders, is it that you are in trouble with one such as that?’
‘And others, but only because of a promise I made to a very dear man who was about to be sent away just as were my parents.’
Ah mon Dieu, what was this? ‘As he left, the chief inspector said, “Tell her the tobacco pouch is still empty.”’
Meet him in the Jardin d’Hiver but not today-tomorrow! ‘Let me get my suitcase and say good-bye to the rabbits and chickens.’
‘And the Boche, if they should arrest you?’
‘Will simply be told you knew nothing.’
‘Mademoiselle Lemaire is still in the building.’
‘Then I must wait until she has left or hope the door to her office is closed.’
‘What’s she got to do with things?’
‘Everything, probably.’
‘Then let me go ahead, and I’ll make sure it’s closed.’
‘Don’t speak to her. Don’t tell her anything, for if you do, all will be lost.’
‘Mademoiselle, there is something else you should know. The chief inspector has a partner. While he’s definitely not the usual, he is still of the Gestapo.’
Blinking at him through the autumn sunlight, Dillmann’s keeper of the horse abattoir’s sheet-iron doors said, ‘Ach, Herr Kohler, the Oberfeldwebel told me that if you should come by, I was to give you a few packets of cigarettes. Run the car in, and I’ll open a box.’
The tobacco trucks had just left as had the other one, the smell of the gasoline given clear enough, as were the sacks of potatoes, squash, cabbage, carrots, onions, et cetera. ‘And you are?’
‘Gefreiter Weiss. We’re about done for today, so he should be here soon.’
There was no point in asking anything else since Werner would have taken steps to keep what he knew to himself, but it was interesting that he had been expected.
‘We’ve matches, too,’ sang out Weiss, having shouldered the Schmeisser. ‘Here, take a few of these as well.’
‘Dank. I’ll just borrow your flashlight and have a little look around. You never know when it might be useful.’
What the hell was Kohler after? He hadn’t switched off the Citroen, had parked facing the doors so that he could beat it as fast as they did. Only now and then was the light needed but when it shone fully on the walkway door that gave out onto the rue Brancion, the thought came that he must want another exit. Checking to see if it was locked, which it was with a sliding bolt above the handle, the Detektiv released this and opened the door a little.
Satisfied, he let what darkness there was return, but only now and then were his footsteps heard beyond the background noises of this place.
‘Gefreiter, that Oberfeldwebel of yours is on his way. If you’d bothered to put a hand on the concrete beneath those boots, you’d have felt the vibrations.’
Scheisse, he had come up right behind him and had a hand on the Schmeisser!
‘Open the big doors and tell Werner to leave room for me to get out ahead of him. He can then close the doors himself when the rest of you are in the truck.’
As if on cue, the truck turned in and when told, Werner heaved himself out from behind the wheel of that chariot and, tossing away a perfectly good cigarillo, said, ‘Hermann, mein lieber Kamerad, what is this?’
‘You tell me and then we’ll both know, but while you’re at it, where’s Schutze Hartmann?’
His little informant with the steel-rimmed specs. ‘Ach, it was felt Russia would be good for the boy, but the medics got him first and guess what they found?’
The son of a bitch! ‘A massive dose of the clap.’
Gregariously, what was left of those hands were thrown out in a gesture of sympathy. ‘So he’s taking the cure, my Hermann, and if he’s lucky, his mother won’t hear of it.’