Her voice was bitter. ‘He has taken Angélique as a hostage. That is why he has left me no choice. Don’t you see that if I do not kill myself, he will have to hold Angélique until I do? It’s the only way.’
It was now nearly 5 a.m. Berlin Time. They had been over things again and again but in spite of what had happened, he found the woman still reticent. She had been there at the time of the murder — yes, of course — and had heard but sworn she had not seen the killing. Le Trocquer had confronted her with the doll when she had caught up with him on the tracks after having left her bicycle in the shed. He had told her in no uncertain terms exactly what he intended to tell the Captain and had thrust the doll at her as evidence.
Aghast at what Angélique had done, she had backed away in terror and had tried to plead with him for her life and that of the child and her husband but he would have nothing to do with her. ‘You are all finished. Finished!’ he had cried.
Stunned by his hatred, she had stumbled back and had fallen. She had then backed away from him on her hands and seat and, still not knowing what to do, had stood in despair and had heard the switch-bar as it had hit the rails.
There had been no sign of her husband nor of the Captain, she had said and had sworn she wasn’t lying. ‘The tracks … the bend in the line … I dropped the doll. I had cut my hand rather badly and when I went forward to see what had happened, I could hardly find the will to put one foot ahead of the other. You must believe me. You must! I only saw that he was dead. I did not kill him! I didn’t! I didn’t!’ she had shrieked.
‘And then?’ he had asked gently. He had not reminded her that she had left the tracks and gone out on to the moor.
She had buried her face in her bandaged hands and had wept. ‘I … I stepped on his glasses. I heard the glass disintegrate under my shoe. He … he made no sound but I knew he never would again because I had seen a boy lying just like him in that street in Berlin. Adèle … Adèle and I had got out of the car to help the boy but … but the Brown Shirts, they … they wouldn’t let us touch him. I had seen others too,’ she had said, ‘on the road that day from Paris.’
‘Did you and Herr Kaestner ever use that shed?’ he asked, startling her back into the present.
‘In which to have sex?’ she blurted, looking up and across the kitchen table at him.
The grief in her eyes was almost more than he could bear. ‘You know that is what I mean, madame.’
‘Then never!’
‘Yet you knew it well enough to leave your bicycle there.’
Must he keep on badgering her like this? ‘Only because Johann had told me of it and that Yvon often left his bike there. I had never been to the clay pits before. I had to ask my way several times. Someone might remember.’
‘And you never saw your husband or Herr Kaestner there on that day?’
‘Never. I touched nothing but the glasses. I left the doll exactly where I had dropped it — I panicked, yes? and I ran in tears, not knowing what to do or what was to become, not just of myself, but of Yvon and Angélique whom I dearly loved and still do.’
Her distress only made the sincerity of her appeal all the more convincing. He wanted so much to believe her but she could well be protecting the husband.
‘Madame, your husband’s bicycle. Was it in that shed?’
It was a question she ought to have anticipated but found difficulty answering and had to take her time. ‘N … no. Yvon … Yvon must have … have left it somewhere else — up by the standing stones perhaps. I did not see him. He … he could well have gone home.’
‘But, madame, we know he didn’t? He picked up the doll.’
‘Yes … yes, he did, didn’t he?’
‘Kaestner gave you and your husband lots of time to get clear. That can only have meant he was not protecting either of you but giving himself time to decide how best to deal with the matter.’
She was frantic. ‘He’ll kill Yvon because he will have to. He’ll kill Angélique. I know he will even though he likes and admires her very much. He can’t afford to let her live unless I kill myself and even then …’ She went to wring her hands in despair and only just stopped herself. ‘Will he fling her from the cliffs? Is that what he’ll do?’
They had not mentioned the Préfet for some time. St-Cyr thought to do so. Victor had known of that shed yet had tried to hide the presence of the bicycle tracks from them. Had he known of the cigarettes the Captain sometimes gave the pianist? Had he used them? He also had every reason to want the shopkeeper dead and to then blame the Captain so as to hide behind that blame.
But now? St-Cyr asked himself. What will he do?
‘Your husband, madame. Please, I must ask you to tell me truthfully. Did he kill Monsieur le Trocquer? You are hiding something from me. I sense it, yes? I feel it. I want so much to help.’
Anger tightened all her features, making the tears glisten. ‘And I have already told you I saw no one out there at that place. No one, do you understand?’
Had Charbonneau done the killing? Everything in her seemed to suggest he had.
‘Yvon Charbonneau overheard the two of you, madame. He heard the accusations and later removed the doll and tried to hide it. He watched as the shopkeeper died or he did it.’
‘And if he didn’t?’ she asked beseechingly.
‘Then until I get the four of you in a room, I am not going to know which of you killed him.’
‘Or even if it wasn’t any of us but someone else perhaps? Some member of U-297’s crew who would realize right away exactly the difficult position his Captain was in? A man who would say nothing about it to anyone and would keep his own counsel. A man who would then do everything he could to protect not only his captain and U-297’s reputation, but himself most especially.’
‘Did you see this man?’
‘I went out on to the moor but something drove me back to the railway. I… I sensed I was not alone and that it was not my husband who watched me as I took my bicycle from that shed and hurried away.’
‘Explain this, please, madame. You “sensed” another?’
She gave him a look so naked he shuddered. ‘Yvon must never learn of it. He would only feel responsible. He would only blame himself for what happened.’
‘Please, madame, I must have your secret.’
‘I felt as I had in that street in Berlin on Kristallnacht. Instinctively I knew I would be raped and then killed.’
The party was over, the dance floor empty and the chairs all upside down on the tables. There wasn’t a soul about. Badly shaken and drenched to the skin, Kohler stood alone. He tried to light a cigarette but … ah nom de Jésus-Christ! his hands shook too much.
‘I’m getting too old for this,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m cracking up.’ Louis and himself had been on the wrong side of the Occupying Authorities far too many times to let it happen again. Distrusted, despised and reviled by both the SS and the Gestapo in France and the fucking Resistance, they had best tread warily and overlook a few details.
‘Like a certain car that nearly ran me down,’ he said bitterly. ‘One of ours. Herr Kaestner. I’m certain of it. Question is, Who let him out of jail? Baumann and the others or Elizabeth Krüger?’ Had she had a spare key to slip the Captain? he asked himself and said, ‘Ah merde, she might have.’
There hadn’t been time to get more than a glimpse of that car and oh for sure it would be impossible to prove that it really had been Kaestner, but … ‘He was alone.’
Nature called and automatically he started for the toilets only to stop, to wonder if Death’s-head and the others had caught up with Paulette le Trocquer and had brought her back.
Was she lying in there on that wet-tiled floor in a swill of puke, soggy cigarette butts and spent condoms? Had she been taken to some cave, or had she managed to get away from them?