Defence was in the Hotel Thermal, Finance and Justice in the Carlton, the Diplomatic Corps in the Ambassadeurs, Education in the Plaza at 9 rue du Parc, Marine in the Helder, the Senate in the Salle des Societes Medicales over on the avenue Thermal, the Chamber of Deputies in the Grand Casino, and every outside call had to pass through here as well as those from room to room.
‘A quiet word, mademoiselle.’
‘C’est impossible! Something has set the hotel to buzzing. Allo … Allo …’
Kohler placed a hand over her left one and prised the receiver up a little from her ear. ‘The girl you relieved,’ he said.
‘In the cellars, I think.’
She stopped then. Yanked off the headset and blurted tearfully, ‘Lulu wouldn’t have told anyone someone had tried to kill the Marechal. We’re all sworn to silence and each of us had to sign a paper that we understood a three-year prison sentence would be our reward if we broke our oath!’
‘But you just did.’
The scar on his face was cruel, the look in his pale blue eyes utterly empty. ‘You’re Gestapo. I … I overheard this in one of the conversations — a word or two, that’s all, Herr …’
‘Kohler, Hermann,’ he said and grinned like her son Paul, warmth and concern now entering his eyes. ‘Look, please don’t be upset. I’m here to help. Menetrel’s crazy and just on one of his rampages. Let me calm him down.’
‘He … he threatened to feed her to the pigs or let the boul. National have her.’
Though officially here only since 11 November last, Herr Gessler had already made a name for himself. In Paris, just after the Defeat, people had soon come to speak in hushed tones of the rue des Saussaies — the Gestapo; the rue Lauriston also — the French Gestapo; and av. Foch, the SS. All were dreaded for equal reasons. Now here, the boul. National …
‘Look, I hate what’s been happening, but why the pigs?’
She shrugged and, dragging the receiver back over her ear, winced at further thoughts.
Lulu wasn’t upstairs in the doctor’s office, she was deep in the cellars, and even from a distance Kohler could hear them.
‘Salope’! shrieked Menetrel. ‘Fuck with me and I’ll let Hercules have you first before the sows dine.’
‘Hercules?’ shouted the woman.
‘The boar, idiot!’
‘Oh la la, docteur, I might even enjoy it, eh? after all, I’ve not had it since my husband fell to one of the Kaiser’s bullets.’
‘Putain, the boar’s cock is a corkscrew,’ yelled Menetrel. ‘Those two pork chops you call labia will be torn to shreds if you don’t give me answers!’
Answers … Answers …
‘Maudit salaud, how can you treat a trusted employee like this?’
‘We’ll let Hercules have a ride in your little shanghai train first!’
Jesus, merde alors, Menetrel certainly did warrant his reputation for crudity! She was sitting on a wooden stool, jammed into the far corner of the freight lift, had seen this Kripo before the others, had seen the pistol in his hand. Ferbrave was with the doctor; two others blocked all escape.
‘Then ask elsewhere,’ she hissed, glaring up at Menetrel. ‘Ask Madame Petain what she said to her coiffeur the day that girl was murdered. Find out what Monsieur Laurence then whispered to another, don’t ask me. My lips have always been sealed. My husband worshipped the Marechal and I would do nothing to discredit his good name or that of my own, and you know it. Now give me a cigarette and don’t tell me you haven’t any when I damn well know you have plenty. Quit picking on a girl half your size and old enough to have been your mother, may God forgive her. You exhaust me, Docteur. And all this after a twelve-hour shift. Merde, c’est scandaleux! It’s enough to make a saint want to piss during his final confession, and now I have to.’
She tossed her faded curls, Ferbrave swung his fist back. Plum-dark in the doughy pan of her face, her eyes leaped. ‘Go ahead, mon brave. Beat a war-widow and grandmother to a pulp. That way my lips will be sealed and I won’t ever be able to tell anyone how you get those cigarettes or the brandy and the cigars. Ah! I see that I’ve made you reconsider.’
The fist wasn’t lowered.
‘You hit her and I’ll kill you,’ breathed Kohler, pressing the muzzle of the Walther P38 to the back of the bastard’s head. ‘Maybe I will anyway. Now get out, all of you. Out, fast! RA US! RAUS! SCHNELL!’
‘Herr Kohler …’
‘Silence! Ach! bugger off before I do it, Doctor. I’m Gestapo, eh? Gestapo! And don’t any of you forget it!’
They weren’t happy but they fled. Kohler found a broken cigarette and, putting the pistol away, tried to straighten the Gauloise bleue for her.
‘Merci,’ she said, ‘but I really must take a piss.’
‘She … she can use our pail.’
‘Your name?’ asked the Gestapo, looking over a shoulder.
‘Al … bert. Groun … Groundkeeper.’
The boy, the young man, had wet himself. ‘Don’t be afraid any more, Albert,’ said Kohler. ‘Henri-Claude isn’t going to hurt her while I’m around and he won’t hurt you either. Just show Madame Lulu to your pail and then bring her back here for a chat.’
‘It’s … it’s warm in the furnace room. We’ve a little nest there.’
‘Then that’s where we’d better go.’
Whenever she could, and too often, Lulu Beauclaire turned the conversation and his attention back to Albert Grenier. Mein Gott, she was tough but damned wary and scared, too, thought Kohler. Shrewd enough to know that Ferbrave or Menetrel, or both of them, would be after her, yet willing to be made a fuss over here if it didn’t necessitate breaking her vow of silence. Instead, using an innate curiosity mingled with motherly patience, she balanced the books by coaxing answers for him from the groundsman’s son who could know nothing of the telephone calls she daily arranged.
‘The keys …?’ she said as if they weren’t staring at her from a board that was nailed to one of the furnace room’s uprights.
‘Three down, one over. Hall des Sources,’ chimed in Albert as he opened the firebox door to bring an added blast of heat and let everyone see the glowing coals.
‘Casino?’ she said, taking it all in, the room with its gargantuan furnace and boiler, the pipes, the ‘nest’ with its coffee pot, broken chairs and lunch boxes, the newspapers …
‘Five over, three down,’ came the swift response, Albert’s back still turned to her.
‘Toilette number one?’ she shot back. ‘There are two of them in the park, Inspector.’
‘One over, one down. I’ve got them all memorized. You won’t catch me out!’
‘Remarkable, isn’t it, Inspector? And to think his mother had a terrible fall when he was eight months in the womb. Fifteen stone steps and then the wall of that old church. It broke her waters and harmed Albert, but not too much, I think. How is Yvette, Albert? You see, I know the family, Inspector. Yvette and I … Ah! the times we had as girls and she not getting in the family way until nearly forty. Forty, I say! Prayed constantly for it and finally the Virgin had to listen.’
‘A miracle,’ sighed Albert shyly. ‘She’s fine, Madame Lulu. She’s going to bake me a pave de sante just like her mother used to for her but it’s … it’s against the law.’
Gingerbread. The pavement or cobblestone of good health. And there’s no ginger or butter, no flour or sugar, or is there? wondered Kohler.
‘All of us girls try to catch Albert out with the keys, Inspector,’ hazarded Lulu quickly.