This one was clever, felt Bedikian, for he hadn’t denied the accusation as most would. ‘And were you yourself ever held in the Hollandsche Schouwburg as she has claimed?’
Standartenfuhrer Kleiber and Kriminalrat Ludin would appreciate getting their hands on this bunch. ‘What the Moffen-the Boche-in October 1941 forced the Dutch to rename the Joodsche Schouwburg? Yes, I was, and yes they knew me as Paul Klemper, an actor, and yes I was first taken to Gestapo HQ-Amsterdam in that requisitioned public school on the Euterpestraat, and yes, I did manage to escape from that theater as she’s claimed. Though the date is a little hazy, I think it would have been around the 17 October 1941. A Friday, and yes, a good forty or so of us, not just myself, simply buggered off as soon as the guards got distracted by searching for valuables and forgot that some of us-myself in particular-would have known that theater well and would lead the others out.’
A hero, felt Emmi. If given the opportunity, he’d take all night to slow them down and make leaving this place more difficult than that theater had soon become. ‘And when recaptured, what, please, did you do, monsieur?’
He mustn’t smile, felt Frans, though dressed like that she only needed a beer stein. Instead, he must look steadily at her and say, ‘I was never “caught,” Fraulein. I remained on the lam until, having kept the Moffen from Etienne and Arie not once but twice, Etienne then asked me to join them last February.’
A year and four months of betraying others before that, no doubt, but she’d have to tell them what had happened to him, decided Anna-Marie. ‘This one was, apparently, grazed by a bullet.’
‘The scar of which, if the sight of me is not too traumatic for her, I will willingly reveal, if you’ll but let her cut my wrists free. It’s high up and near the shoulder and I was, I admit, rather lucky, since they had dogs as well.’
‘Yet when we grabbed you at the Gare de l’Est, you tried to get at this pistol of yours, and when you couldn’t, cried out for help,’ said Felix.
‘Wouldn’t you have done? Merde alors, monsieur, how was I to know who you were? Gestapistes francais, peut-etre, and not just an end to myself and Etienne and Arie, but this one, too, especially since she has been hiding so much from you all.’
‘A trainee borderline sorter, Diamant Meyerhof, Amsterdam,’ said Kupka.
‘But has she told you what she’s been carrying? Lots and lots of those, otherwise why would the enemy want her so badly Kaltenbrunner in Berlin would clamp such a lid of secrecy over it all?’
If he could, this Frans would turn them against Annette-Melanie shy;, even to using her real name, but still he would have to be heard, thought Bedikian. ‘Did you and Labrie or Beekhuis know anything of what she was carrying?’
They could use the diamonds and this one was now thinking about that, so good. ‘Not until we got to Paris. We only knew that she was desperately wanted and that we had to get her out.’
By her expression alone, felt Emmi, Annette-Melanie couldn’t hide the dislike of what she was being forced to do, accuse another shy; whose life was in the balance. ‘Out and away as fast as possible, monsieur, and how, please, did the three of you manage that? I’m not a Fraulein, by the way. I’m a widow but no longer wear the ring because those who shot my husband, who was a Communist like myself, stole it from me. Now answer, please. We haven’t got all night and you know it.’
The slut. ‘At my suggestion we played dress-up as NSBers, the Dutch fascists, the Nationaal Socialistische Beweging, and we-that is myself who was playing the captain-told the Wehrmacht at the Amsterdam depot that we were to deliver one of their trucks to the internment camp at Vught. We had forged papers for it, certainly. Good ones too.’
But had those on guard at that depot been told to let them have it? wondered Kupka. ‘And where, then, if I may ask, did you finally leave that vehicle?’
So that others could then be held responsible and shot, eh? ‘We had parked our own, a gazogene, with a reliable farmer well inside the Belgian border, but of course we didn’t leave the Wehrmacht’s truck anywhere near him, but next to the farm of a well-known collabo.’
This one would have answers for everything, decided Bedikian shy;. ‘So you made the crossing just to the south of Reusel, was it?’
Again he had better not smile. ‘And that is where she claims to have cut herself as she retrieved that coin I was supposed to have left for the enemy to find. A rijksdaaler, mes amis? A silver shy; coin any would gladly pick up, and with no guarantee it would ever be found by those she claims were intended. Now is there anything shy; else, Anna-Marie Vermeulen, or would you prefer shy; Annette- shy;Melanie Veroche, and I do hope and trust you’ll tell them all about the diamonds.’
‘After you had killed those two, you climbed into the back of that van and broke open a case of champagne. There were three types, the Taitinger, the Mumm and the Moet et Chandon. Constantly since, I have asked myself why you chose the one you did when you had the others.’
‘She had a fiance, monsieur,’ said Emmi.
‘And how the hell was I to have known that? We’re only given very minimal details of any we move, and speed is of the essence, secrecy too, so who had time to spell that out?’
It would have to be said. ‘I think you had been shown a photo of Henki and myself, taken at our engagement in the dunes at Zandvoort. The bottle of Moet that Henki had somehow managed was upright in the sands behind us.’
How touching. ‘And is it that I didn’t simply choose quickly so as to salute your happy escape from the rape those two had intended?’
‘What is this, he’s saying, Annette-Melanie?’ asked Aram.
Frans had known that she wouldn’t have told them anything of what those two had intended. ‘I knew that they’d be up to something because they had recognized me from that previous journey you asked me to make with them, and when I saw them at that Berru lookout, I suggested to Etienne that we use the ruins of l’Abbaye de Vauclair because I knew something of it from my studies. I think, too, but can’t be sure, that their boss, the chairman of that bank, Monsieur Hector Bolduc, may have encouraged them, for he’s been wanting me to join the escort service of his mistress whose office is in the building where I used to live, and I have been constantly refusing because I knew that what he really wanted of me was to please the overseers of that bank of his.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ asked Aram.
‘Because I felt I could handle it myself, as I have in the past.’
‘Now perhaps she’ll be kind enough to tell you exactly why the Moffen want her so badly.’
It would have to be admitted. ‘It’s true that I was an apprentice borderline sorter and that I happen to have diamonds I’m taking to someone, and that I was given a few for myself to use if help was needed. But I haven’t any of them with me, and I intend, at all costs, to keep that information entirely to myself.’
‘Then perhaps, mes amis, that is the answer you need. Enough to buy the necessary weapons, cars, trucks, travel papers-you name it, and much more-and she knows it, too, otherwise she’d have told you. She’s afraid you’ll make her sell those diamonds or take them from her.’
‘Again, I haven’t any with me, having deliberately left them with someone I believe I can trust, and that’s not to say I don’t trust yourselves, but I do have this. It’s the note that was left for me by the chief inspector of the Surete who is after this one for the murders he committed.’
‘An informant,’ said Louis while looking across the table at Bolduc shy; and fingering that rijksdaaler Ludin had let them keep, ‘and this photo, Hermann. The Jardin des Plantes and an associate grounds shy;keeper who is, unless I’m very mistaken, handing her some dried rosemary, the date taken being 7 April of this year.’