Fewer were about, but all noticed her-the tinsmith in his bleus shy; de travail, the mason in his, two old women at the communal shy; tap as well as a young mother who was nursing her baby. Kids, cats, that old collie, all shyly or curiously watched and she said hello to each and gave her name as Annette-Melanie Veroche, student, they taking note of it and asking, ‘Has Madame agreed to let you stay with Monsieur Arie?’
‘I’m to see her in the morning.’
‘Mornings are never her best.’
‘She’ll be at her supper. Is Napoleon happy?’
And so it went, she trying to memorize the location of all the staircases, the smells, the drains, the downspouts, the iron bars on some of the windows that gave directly onto the pavement. She mustn’t trip in the dark, mustn’t drop the bike, must walk it up the centre and hope no one was waiting for her because she was going to have to leave the diamonds with Arie, was going to have to give him a note and an address he could quickly destroy if needed, something like, If I don’t come back, take this tin box to …
He had been about to reheat an omelette for two and had been watching the courtyard for her, but … ‘I don’t think I could eat. As soon as it’s dark enough, I have to leave. You’re not to try to follow. You’re to stay right here and look after this for me. I haven’t told anyone where I’m now staying, and I won’t no matter what happens.’
The early evening’s traffic was the usual, thought Kohler. Hordes of cyclists constantly dinged their bells, the occasional ribald bangs of a gazogene were heard and to those came the hurrying click-clack of the hinged, wooden-soled shoes everyone hated because small stones, twigs and mud would cause them to jam. But no French pedestrian would ever set foot on the pavement directly adjacent to the Hotel Lutetia at 43 rue d’Assas without one of the Occupier. It was forbidden.
‘A gigantic sugar cake of art nouveau and art deco, Louis, whose rooms and suites were all cut up into offices in the summer of 1940 for counterespionage agents and all the rest. A former bastion of Left-Bank luxury, with ground floor, five storeys and attics, and since the defeat, the home of Abwehr-West who let so many out of jail and gave them jobs and purchasing agencies to hide behind. And considering what’s now happening to the Abwehr, if that’s not irony, what is?’
Though in a hurry, it would have to be said. ‘Irony? Look across place Alphonse Deville and what do you see?’
‘The military prison of the Cherche-Midi.’*
‘Had the Church not agreed to the sale of the Convent of the Daughters of the Good Shepherd in 1847, Hermann, that would never have been built to remind us all of the shame of Dreyfus having been arrested and the injustice now of far too many others.’
‘Let me deal with the sentries here.’
A last, fleeting glimpse of the setting sun gave the nearby Bon Marche, Paris’s first department store and one of Agnes’s great pleasures, but … ‘Speaking of irony, Inspector, was that not a forest- shy;green Cadillac Sixty Special you just parked my car behind?’
‘Liebe Zeit, the things one misses when in a hurry.’
Both sentries had machine pistols, so security must have been beefed up. ‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central, meine Freunde. Hauptmann Reinecke and Leutnant Heiss. It’s urgent.’
‘And a murder inquiry,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Show them the letter, Hermann.’
But a glance was needed.
‘They’re in the darkroom, in the cellars. Go left at the main foyer and desk, and immediately take the staircase down. Shall I ring them?’
‘It’s to be a surprise,’ said Hermann.
‘The darkroom, Hermann, and not in records?’
‘Not the usual, then. Not a top priority. Incidental, even just a notion about someone, but there will be the negatives and at least one print of each.’
The little red light was on and the door locked. ‘Let me,’ said Louis.
‘Don’t expect me to find liniment to rub on that shoulder.’
‘It won’t be necessary. The solution, if you had taken the trouble, is readily available.’
A bucket of sand represented the tonic for incendiaries should any happen to fall on the hotel and make it to the cellars. Taking it up, Louis rammed the lock, the door flying open to reveal two startled uniforms who immediately dropped what they’d been holding and reached for holstered pistols.
‘Don’t!’ said Kohler. Reinecke was the taller, Heiss the younger, though both were under the age of thirty. ‘Chief Inspector, slap the bracelets on that one, while I do this one. Both have been up to enough mischief for the Fuhrer to want them shot.’
‘No pistols, please, gentlemen,’ said St-Cyr. ‘No handcuffs either, but where does Hector Bolduc want you to deliver these?’
Prints and negatives of that girl were scattered about, thought Kurt Reinecke, but this Surete and Kripo, though hated by the SD, SS and Gestapo, were on the best of terms with the Kommandant von Gross-Paris, who not only despised those others but revered the Abwehr.
‘Well?’ demanded St-Cyr.
‘This is a top-secret Abwehr investigation. If I were you, I’d back off and leave Leutnant Heiss and myself to deal with it.’
‘Top secret, Hermann.’
‘And a nice try, Chief, so they can join us if they like. Now where are these to be delivered, Hauptmann?’
The time to take care of these two would have to come later. ‘That garage of his.’
‘Good!’ said St-Cyr. ‘Let’s fill that wastebasket with every negative and print of her, and when we get there, why we can have a look at them to see how valuable they’ll be to our murder investigation and no other.’
‘You to take the negatives and the prints, Chief, me to drive the Cadillac and take these Abwehr so that I can answer any questions they might have of what’s to happen to them if they don’t cooperate.’
‘But will follow, Hermann. Otherwise you might never find it, and I’d have to find you and then that girl after everything else with these two and Bolduc has been settled.’
Always in the rue des Gobelins during the blackout, thought Anna- shy;Marie, there would be the sudden and not so sudden sounds of nearby industry; always, too, one of the hirondelles-the swallows-a cape-wearing flic on a bicycle who would do his best to see that not a glimmer of light was showing, this one a sadist at it.
On and on he came, the squeaking of ungreased axle and sprocket lamenting his passage and irritating him but giving warning, as did the blinkered, blue-washed headlamp he would often switch off so that, leaving the bike, the hunt for her could begin.
Alone and dwindling, that red taillight at last found the rue Leon Durand to vanish southward toward the Gobelins itself. But now the gate at number seventeen wouldn’t open. Now, when she felt for it, the padlock was on and facing inward. Frans wasn’t here. Frans had been moved. Something must have happened. Had the Moffen done a razzia? Had that been why that flic hadn’t bothered to search for her? Had they all been arrested, Frans as well?
Letting go of the padlock, it struck the iron bars.
‘Mademoiselle, you endanger Felix with a matter you should have taken care of yourself. Now you expect us to do your housekeeping when you have jeopardized the lives of all of us. Were you followed? Did you even consider going back out to the boulevard Arago to have a final look and listen?’
‘Aram …’
‘Have you understood what I have just said?’
‘I was desperate. I … I didn’t even know if Felix would be at the Gare de l’Est.’