‘He doesn’t like your cooking?’
Was it so puzzling? ‘No, he doesn’t. Now stop trying to have the last word. That always belongs to the cook. Even you should know a thing like that!’
Death’s-head’s laughter turned several female eyes and brought their smiles and catcalls, a popular man.
A dealer in the black market, swore Kohler inwardly. The son of a bitch has been selling stores on the side and getting all the ass he wants.
*
The city’s morgue was overcrowded. Draped with bloodied, bomb-ravaged white sheeting, old bits of sail canvas, plum-purple curtains, a woman’s red dress — whatever had come to hand — casualties from the raid all but covered the cold concrete floor.
Alone, at the back beside the ice storage vaults, the body of le Trocquer lay on its upraised pallet beneath a clean white sheet that had been drawn away to expose his battered head.
He was naked, of course, and the crude stitching of the coroner’s incision would not be pleasant.
A cinematographer at heart, St-Cyr let a breath escape slowly as he waited for the Sous-Préfet to bring the autopsy report. ‘Hermann couldn’t have stood this,’ he murmured to himself but aloud since no one else would hear. ‘He’d have thought of his sons and of all the dead he had ever witnessed.’
The smell always took a bit of getting used to. For one who prided himself on his sense of smell, it was not offensive, ah no. Merely unpleasant.
The paltry contents of le Trocquer’s pockets lay in a cardboard tray that had seen years of use and was stained with blood and other things.
‘One dirty handkerchief,’ he muttered softly. ‘One black comb with six teeth missing — did he try to use them as toothpicks?’ Identity papers and ration tickets — one wallet containing fifty-seven fanned out francs and twenty-five sous in change. A deer-horn pocket-knife, not very good, two elastic bands, an eraser … a lipstick, a compact and a small vial of cheap perfume …
A door opened, and the noise of it, crashing through the tomblike silence, startled him so that he looked up suddenly and only just stopped himself from saying anything.
Looking very tragic in a black-and-white polka dot cloche that was worn well down over her left brow, Paulette le Trocquer paused. Large silver ear-rings dangled. The thick blonde hair was brushed out into masses of soft curls. The black turtle-neck sweater, whose silver-and-rhinestone choker could just be seen beneath the black overcoat with the upturned collar, would cling to her.
There would be a broad belt with a large bright buckle of some sort and a tightly fitting, dangerously short skirt. Silk stockings too — ah, they were so scarce these days one hardly ever saw them any more — and, yes, black high-heeled leather shoes with criss-crosses and anklets of rhinestones and leather.
She swallowed tightly and lost the blush of colour in her fair cheeks. The red lips quivered, her chest filled. ‘Is … is this the right place? Is … is that him?’
A nod would suffice and he gave it curtly. Then he watched as she picked her way delicately towards him and he thought… Ah Nom de Dieu, what did he think? Only the Germans could have coined a word for it. The Germans … She is like a Leichengaengerin, a woman who walks over the corpses of her own making.
So many of them were there and she so tightly skirted, her progress was difficult. She looked down at each shrouded figure. She hesitated several times as if puzzled as to who the victim really was. Then, at last, she stood beside him at the foot of the pallet, now green beneath the dusky eyeshadow and the soft brush of beautiful eyebrows.
‘Mademoiselle, did Préfet Kerjean order you to come here to identify your father’s body?’
Perhaps she did not hear him, perhaps she was thinking back to childhood days and those bright moments that hung like ornaments on the tree of one’s life.
Unbidden, the china-blue eyes dropped to the cardboard tray. ‘Can I take those?’ she asked, a whisper. ‘They’re mine. He can keep the perfume. I won’t be needing it any more. I’ll have far better.’
Fastidiously her black-gloved hand found the lipstick and the compact. He hated to tell her she couldn’t have them just yet, though he found a vindictive pleasure in doing so.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said and gazed fully at him. ‘Mother couldn’t come, could she, so I had to. Someone had to. It might just as well be me. It’s always me.’
Kerjean should have accompanied her. Had the Préfet made her do it as a warning, a way of forcing her to keep silent?
It was a thought most troubling to him.
Hesitantly the girl ran her eyes over the shroud and only at the last forced herself to study her father’s head and the terrible wound that, because he lay face up, was only partly exposed.
‘Why is his mouth open like that? Why are the eyes? He had bad teeth. Even garlic couldn’t hide the stink of his halitosis.’
‘Tell me something, mademoiselle,’ he said quietly and, tossing a look the Sous-Préfet’s way, cautioned that one to stay put for a moment. ‘Where was your father on the day before his death?’
The 31st of December, last Thursday … ‘At the shop. It’s a busy time, isn’t it, the last day of the year? The Germans always buy things they’ve forgotten to send home. Maybe it’s guilt that causes them to remember their loved ones.’
‘Did he sell any of the dolls?’
Ah, the dolls, was that it? ‘One doll in particular, Inspector? A doll whose head was then broken?’
‘Please just answer the question.’
‘Ten of the dolls were sold. Ten! There, does that help you? All to Germans from the army and the U-boats and other things. All had to be parcelled up for the postmistress, yes? I ought to know. He made me do it. They donated the paper.’
‘And he didn’t pay you, did he?’
‘He didn’t even give me pocket money. I’d only waste it on things like those.’
She indicated the lipstick and the perfume the father had obviously confiscated.
‘What else did the men buy?’
‘China ashtrays — one had a dog mounting another. Does that tell you anything?’
‘Please, we need your help. Don’t ever taunt a police officer, not if you plan a life on the streets.’
‘I don’t. I’m too good for that. I’ve better things in mind but it’s interesting you should think me suitable.’
St-Cyr sighed sadly. ‘I don’t, mademoiselle. For myself, I think you worthy of far more, especially now as you are so close to freedom.’
‘Monsieur Charbonneau and his daughter came to the shop. I saw them looking in the window.’
‘What did they buy?’
A doll — was this what he thought? Hah! she’d make him beg for it.
‘Mademoiselle …?’
That look of his was not cruel, but so searching it would uncover secrets she could not let him have. ‘Some green glass candlesticks the child wanted. A gift for her stepmother.’
His interest intensified. She could see the nostrils of that robust nose pinch themselves, and noted that the hairs were a little darker than those of his moustache.
‘Did you serve them?’ he asked, and she knew he was trouble and vehemently shook her head.
‘I came downstairs to see my father tucking the candlesticks into Monsieur Charbonneau’s rucksack.’
‘But … but you have just said you saw them looking in the window?’
‘Mother had to be seen to. He,’ she indicated the corpse, ‘wanted me out of the way so,’ she shrugged, ‘I went up to her even though it wasn’t time.’
But you did not stay, he said to himself as he studied her and asked, What was going through that mind of hers? What infamy had she really been up to if any? ‘And the child?’ he asked suddenly.
Her smile was brief. ‘She was watching my father do so, that’s all, Inspector. She was very cautious and silent as most girls are of that age, isn’t that so?’
Nom de Jésus-Christ, what was she hiding? ‘I think there is more to it, mademoiselle. Angélique Charbonneau would have seen Herr Kaestner’s dolls on display. Had she a doll of her own?’