The windows of the Café of the Golden Handshake were gone. The glass had been swept up but he was still the only customer. Across the square, the ruins of the Préfecture revealed the impossibility of fighting crime under such conditions. Requisitioned in the fall of 1940 as a barracks for the U-boat crews, it had been abandoned to the police who had moved back in when the bombing had become too much and Quiberon and the other places in the countryside had seemed better for the Germans.
Of course the Organization Todt had built a bomb shelter in the cellars. Of course it should have been sufficient — how were they to have anticipated that a 1,000-pound bomb would skip and jump and deflect itself right into the cellar? — but now a warped bicycle frame, its spokes fanned out like the spines of a poisonous sea urchin, seemed all that was left of the Sous-Préfet le Troadec.
Yes, the situation was not good. He had counted on le Troadec to tell him things the Préfet would never reveal.
The eyelids were too heavy. The mind drifted off. Sadly he drew in a breath and from deep in a pocket, uncovered a vial Hermann had left on a woman’s night table in Lyon. Exhaustion then, too. A week … had it been as much since then? A case of arson. So constant was the blitzkrieg of Boemelburg’s demands and those of common crime — they had only been on this present case for thirty-six hours, a century it seemed and no sleep! — Hermann had succumbed to the pep-up. ‘He’s addicted,’ swore St-Cyr under his breath. ‘He’s been taking small handfuls and trying to hide the fact from me.’
The pills made the heart race and when a man is fifty-five or fifty-six years of age and inclined to lie a little about it, and is big like Hermann and never wanting to slow down, why a constant harassment. ‘He could drop dead when most needed. I’m going to have to get his heart checked.’
Shaking two of the tablets out, St-Cyr added a third, crushed them up with a spoon and, grimacing, downed them with the coffee. At fifty-two years of age and still a little overweight in spite of the shortages and all the exercise, the pills were chancy. It would take awhile for them to work. He would concentrate on the shopkeeper no one should have chosen as a business partner let alone the Kapitän Kaestner. He would consider the victim’s wife and daughter and the freedom the money might bring to either of them.
When Sous-Préfet Gaetan le Troadec found him, he was fast asleep. The coffee had been tipped across the table — a sudden, instinctive jerking of the left hand perhaps. Everyone hated having to drink that stuff.
A vial of pills had been scattered, the pipe and tobacco pouch forgotten beneath hands whose fists were those of a pugilist. Indeed, the Chief Inspector St-Cyr had won several medals at the Police Academy in his early days and had most recently flattened the Préfet of Paris, an arch enemy. The left hand was still swollen. The fight had not been in the ring, ah no, but on a case just finished, that of a missing teenaged girl, a neighbour, Préfet Kerjean had said. There’d been a robbery too. Eighteen millions, one for every year of her life.
Quietly le Troadec found another chair and sat opposite him. Exhausted, he took off his gloves and hat and signalled to the patron to bring him a coffee.
St-Cyr still wore a gold wedding band. He would understand why the wife and kids had had to be moved out into the countryside, thus saving the life of the Préfet’s assistant. He would understand a lot of things but he would not let them interfere with his pursuit of the truth. Not him.
The coffee was hot, payment signalled on to the account with a cautionary wave. Let this one sleep. I want to take my time with him.
Both the Chief Inspector and his Gestapo partner meant business. Préfet Kerjean had made a point of warning him to be careful of what he said. There had been a bus — Madame Charbonneau had thought the two detectives might have been killed. Préfet Kerjean had driven all the way to Lorient and the hospital and then to the temporary morgue just to find out if they had.
He’d been disappointed at the news but had quickly recovered. He hadn’t stayed and, though he had avoided saying where he was going, it was evident he had gone right back to tell her the news.
Everyone quietly said they were having an affair. Would the woman have wrung her hands in despair at not finding the detectives’ bodies in the wreckage of that bus? Would Préfet Kerjean have put an arm about her shoulders and tried to comfort her?
Were they in it together, harsh though that thought might be? Who, really, had killed that shopkeeper? The Captain? The woman — could it be possible? Had her husband been at the site of the murder too?
With a sinking feeling, le Troadec had to admit the husband could well have been there but why, then, would he have killed the shopkeeper? A mistake perhaps?
Everyone knew the Captain had also taken a decided interest in the woman. Yvon Charbonneau was a jealous man but had chosen to take himself away to search for the past rather than confront the couple — he, himself, had seen enough evidence of that, oh for sure.
Préfet Kerjean had deliberately not mentioned seeing things he would normally never have missed.
Then why protect the husband by arresting the Captain, if not to protect the woman from Herr Kaestner’s advances and keep him away from her?
The deep brown ox-eyes of the Sûreté opened. Suddenly there was a grin of welcome and relief, the explosion of, ‘Ah, grâce à Dieu, I am glad to find you alive!’
Such an outburst could only mean trouble.
The eyes swiftly narrowed. ‘Tell me about the Préfet’s son.’
‘The son …? But … but what has Henri-Paul to do with things? He’s in Paris. He was wounded twice and discharged. He works in advertising, I think, or is it insurance?’
And you are going madly back over the case to find the reason for my question, thought St-Cyr. They were quite alone. The patron was behind the zinc tidying things. Still, it would be best to keep the voice down. ‘The sardiniers, Sous-Préfet. Was one of them reported missing on the 3rd of November?’
‘The sardiniers …?’
Was the question such a calamity? Feeling suddenly sick, le Troadec clumsily searched his pockets for cigarettes but found none.
‘Please answer the question and then tell me what the cost is of sending not just one person but several to England?’
The Chief Inspector could not possibly see the zinc from where he was sitting, not without turning. Frantically le Troadec swept his eyes over the all but empty café before settling them on the owner.
‘I know of no such things, Chief Inspector. It’s preposterous. The Germans maintain a very tight control. Ah, what do you think you are saying?’
The Sous-Préfet’s shrug was massive in rebuke, a hand was tossed in dismissal at such idiocy.
‘Just answer me.’
The Chief Inspector hadn’t seen the patron take up his broom and come closer. ‘I don’t kn …’
A hand shot out to grip him by the wrist. ‘Do I have to tell you how it was?’ hissed St-Cyr. ‘Don’t be so loyal to your boss. It’s admirable. Oh for sure it is, but not when murder is being discussed.’
Le Troadec looked coldly at the hand that held him. ‘I tell you I know nothing of such things. Nothing, do you understand? Isn’t that correct, Monsieur le Cudenec?’
Ah merde, thought St-Cyr, have I given him away?
‘Now if we are finished, Chief Inspector, I must attend to my duties. There are still the dead who must be identified and whose families must be notified.’
From the square, the streets ran outwards in all directions, some miraculously spared, others a shambles.
Half-way up a ruined street, they stopped beside the shell of what had once been a school. Desperately le Troadec searched the street for possible witnesses. ‘They’ll kill me if I tell you.’