Good for Hermann. Having the last word again, as nearly always. Grumpy too, but, then, he had his reasons. But what of a detective’s duty? Must the girl be brought to justice for a crime she did commit? Everything in him said that it was not his job to ask such questions, but only to bring the assailant in. Yet the law of the hills tugged at him fiercely. The villagers would need to see their own brand of justice done.
‘With luck, the kid won’t lose the villa, Louis. Maybe she’ll have to lease it to Munk and he’ll have to be satisfied.’
For the Duration? Ah, one would wish to say such a thing but not to Hermann, and especially not at a time like this.
‘The parish records will have been burned, Louis. Madame Buemondi and that husband of hers adopted the girls, and under the law, Josette-Louise is legal heir no matter what anyone says. So, come on, my old one, I need a drink.’
Still there could be no answer from the French side. Matters were often best left that way but … Ah, what the hell. ‘Me, also, Hermann. Two I think, and then a meal.’
‘You’re buying. You’ve got all the cash and Munk’s not getting one franc of it!’
‘Then you’d better ask him for the motorcycle. It’s stolen.’
‘That thing? Hey, I requisitioned it on sight, but we’re going to need a better set of wheels and I know just the place. A Bentley or a Rolls, and I’m driving.’
Boemelburg, who was looking out of the windows of his office, was quite taken with the Rolls which was parked in the courtyard behind Gestapo HQ Paris, on the rue des Saussaies. ‘For Christmas, Sturmbannfuhrer,’ said Kohler quietly from his chair before the Chief’s desk. ‘Louis and I thought you might like to have it.’
The Old Man snorted, ‘Ja, ja, Hermann, and what is it I am to give you in return? Ausweises for those two women to return south, eh? Come, come, don’t be a dummkopf. You know I can’t do that.’
‘Neither of them is a threat to the Reich. The one only wants to weave …’
‘Weave?’ thundered Boemelburg. ‘If I understand correctly, the woman wove quite a tale and involved the whole village as accomplices.’
‘But only to protect her daughter. Delphane was using them, Sturmbannfuhrer.’
The Chief tossed his shaven head. ‘And Bleicher, the famous Colonel Henri of the Abwehr? What have you offered that one for Christmas?’
‘Nothing, Sturmbannfuhrer. The Buemondi woman’s list of telephone numbers was accidentally destroyed along with their dossiers and our own in Gestapo Leader Munk’s stove.’
Well up in his sixties and bigger than Kohler, France’s top cop and Head of SIPO-SD Section IV, the Gestapo in France, knew enough not to ask how this could possibly have happened. ‘And the village?’ he hazarded.
‘Left to bury their dead, my Sturmbannfuhrer.’
‘Don’t “my” me, Kohler. Gott im Himmel, what am I to do with the two of you?’
They waited, keeping silent. Not turning from the windows, the Chief said at last, ‘The girl, is she really pregnant by the herbalist’s son or was it this … this professor, this sham artist who defiled her?’
‘Not pregnant, Sturmbannfuhrer Boemelburg. A mistake or a fantasy.’
‘Good! Why did Delphane use the antique arrow to kill the woman? Why not a newer one?’
‘Because it was more fitting but also, Sturmbannfuhrer, because the newer ones were not kept in the grand salon and available to him.’
‘Don’t weave too hard, Hermann. Your fingertips might suffer. Surely the Inspector would have used a gun to kill her?’
Kohler steeled himself for it but the Chief had yet to turn from the windows. Still admiring his new toy. ‘Delphane wanted to pin the murder on the weaver, Sturmbannfuhrer. Guns were not allowed.’
‘Guns,’ grunted Boemelburg. ‘Guns like the one that killed the financier, eh, Louis, and then did in the perpetrator of that little falsehood.’
‘My gun,’ muttered the Frog, knowing he shouldn’t speak out of turn. ‘No one in authority would believe it was my revolver that had killed Stavisky, Walter, because they did not want to believe it and the whole thing was to be hushed up. Serial numbers and all.’
‘Yet in every police photograph, Louis, it was your gun we saw.’
St-Cyr nodded. ‘Madame Buemondi’s father got Jean-Paul to deal with the financier.’
‘Was he paid for the job, do you think?’ asked the Chief.
‘Perhaps, but then … ah then, money need not always change hands.’
‘One of the connected, eh, Louis? The Establishment. Friends in high places who could help him out in the future when a favour was needed. What made him turn against us? Come, come, from you I demand an answer.’
It was clear that Walter was worried but equally clear that he knew more than he was letting on. St-Cyr took out his pipe and tobacco pouch. A Gestapo, Walter was, and a Nazi too; but beneath it all and behind it, a cop and a damned good detective. One could not say otherwise when one had known and worked with him before the war.
Lighting up the furnace, he took several puffs, then waved out the match. ‘Perhaps, Walter, for completeness you might tell us why Abwehr Central and the famous Colonel Henri started to watch the Inspector Jean-Paul Delphane but did not jump him?’
‘Louis …?’ began Hermann, startled by the all-too-obvious challenge.
It was a tired Boemelburg who said, ‘Because I always suspected what Jean-Paul had done in Chamonix, Louis, and wanted us to take a closer look at him.’
‘So you tipped off the Abwehr, for whom he was then working, and they went after him.’ Paris these days … it never ceased to amaze!
‘And Bleicher suspected the truth but wanted the Gestapo to take care of things – Delphane was too well connected for their shining morals.’
‘But … but why did he go over to the other side?’ blurted Kohler. ‘The Resistance?’
Boemelburg turned back to the windows and the rain. Was it pissing like this in Berlin, he wondered, or snowing? The car was superb and he’d enjoy being driven around in it from time to time but for how long?
‘Even the Far Right are beginning to have second thoughts about us, Louis, but who can answer for a man like Jean-Paul? Perhaps he felt the end was near and thought that by switching sides he’d save himself.’
‘The war in Russia,’ muttered Hermann, ‘and the one in North Africa.’
‘Who knows?’ said Boemelburg. ‘The Right have always done what they felt was right for themselves.’
‘Walter, why not admit that you lost heavily in the Stavisky Affair and have been feeling badly ever since? Me, I am certain you must have …’
‘Some shares. A little venture – ah, it was nothing, Louis. Nothing. Merely the heating-and-ventilating firm I used to work for here in the old days. One can’t always be a cop. Someday one has to retire. Stavisky refloated the firm and I thought … Well, Paris, I’d had such good times here. I …’
St-Cyr tugged at Kohler’s sleeve. ‘Enjoy the Rolls, Walter, and the holiday, eh? Hermann and me, we must take a few days off to rest up.’
‘Then read that telex on my desk and enjoy your own holiday.’
Ah no … The thing was from Mueller, Gestapo HQ Berlin. It was all about someone code-named Salamander.
‘Find him, Louis, before he kills too many more. Hermann, you go with him. Lyon first, I think. Arson, Louis. A cinema-house and all the popcorn the two of you can eat!’
‘And the weaver and her daughter?’ bleated the Surete’s little Frog.
‘Besancon and the internment camp there for British citizens, Louis. It’s the best I can offer.’
‘But what about Christmas? What about …?’ Kohler saw the telex beneath the other one. He could not bring himself to pull it out. Apprehension rushed in on him. The boys? he asked. Gerda … his little Gerda?
‘She’s asking you for a divorce, Hermann,’ said St-Cyr, wishing he could cushion the blow to the ego. ‘Apparently your wife has found someone else.’