‘A priest. Une gueule cassée. No others. I swear it.’
She was lying again — several had been sold — but he had what he wanted. ‘Brother Matthieu, when?’
‘Late last June. He was very excited when he first saw it and trembled at the touch.’
‘Okay, I believe you, but let’s cement our bargain. Was he a frequent buyer?’
May God forgive her and keep the knife from her back. ‘Yes, but … but only of the bosoms, never of the others which shamed him. He was not like most of the holy fathers who make their way to us, the sisters also, some of them. When he would come, I … I would have to cover everything else up before he would dare to enter la caverne de joie to … to make his selection.’
A collector, and not the bishop. Not Rivaille.
St-Cyr held his breath. Subtle differences of darkness gave silhouettes. The one who had been following him hesitated. The urge to cry out, Sûreté, you’re under arrest! was there but suppressed. Uncertain if the quarry had been lost, the man moved off, the darkness of the street swallowing him.
Two minutes later, the Sûreté began to follow him. Hermann was better at this sort of thing. No one could touch Hermann when being followed by him, or being allowed to follow him. It was uncanny how such a giant could walk so lightly. The poacher in him, perhaps.
The man hesitated. St-Cyr hesitated. Here and there, but at some distance, were tiny, furtive, blue-shaded lights — other pedestrians — and then, its wheels squeaking as it fought the wind, a vélo-taxi.
The bicycle-rickshaw, one of the Occupation’s greatest indignities, trundled past, its driver cursing the mistral as the couple in the back giggled and laughed. A German soldier or officer and his Avignonnaise, his petite amie.
Silence overcame all sounds save those of the wind, but then the droning, muffler-banging, incessant throb of a motorcycle patrol plundered the silence. Four bikes with sidecars, their headlamps squinting blue-shaded slit-eyes into the darkness, roared up the narrow street, the sound of their engines crashing from the walls until …
The sound had faded and he realized again — how often had it been since the fall of 1940? — that for Hermann and himself it was only a matter of time.
We have survived so far, but no one else really cares about common crime, not any more, he said to himself. And those who get in the way only get removed.
Far to the west, along the whole of the Spanish Frontier, the Wehrmacht had stationed some of its finest alpine troops. Whereas in 1940, ’41 and even in ’42, night crossings to freedom had always been difficult, now they were exceedingly hazardous. Gone were the days of a 12,000-franc passeur, a guide. Now it was 1,000,000 francs. Hermann knew it, too, but kept talking about taking Giselle and Oona to safety before it was too late. A bar, a tobacco shop … the retirement options were always well off on the horizon and always golden.
‘Inspector, is that you?’
‘Ah merde!’ he cried. ‘Madame …’
‘Sister. It’s Sister Marie-Madeleine. Forgive me for following you but … but I had to see you before it was too late and this … this was the only way.’
Armand Corbeau stood on tiptoes clasping the bell above the door, but he hadn’t been quick enough. Some of the sound had escaped to reach the back of the shop.
Kohler reminded him of this. The shop bell was hesitantly released, Corbeau warily looking over a shoulder and down the long, narrow tunnel of the shop to where they stood as if in judgement of him.
Dénise Corbeau hesitantly wet a hairy upper lip and let a breath escape. ‘You fool,’ she softly exhaled.
The customer who had entered earlier had just departed.
‘De Passe,’ blurted Corbeau. ‘The préfet has said we are to keep silent and to destroy immediately our stock of … of photographs, even though he knows you have just seen them.’
‘And Brother Matthieu?’ asked Kohler.
‘Wasn’t with him. I swear it.’
‘But de Passe asked you if the brother had been in?’
‘He said he wished to speak to him. He … he was worried, I think, about him.’
‘Worried?’
‘A little. Inspector, Brother Matthieu had a terrible time in the Great War. Everyone is aware of this. We … we all must make allowances for la gueule cassée. The constant doubts about God, the …’
‘Desires?’ asked Kohler.
‘You fool,’ said the sister again to her brother. ‘Idiot! Why can’t you keep your mouth shut?’
‘What desires?’ demanded the Kripo.
‘Desires to touch and to explore,’ she said, tossing the words aside at him. ‘Those are nothing, Inspector. Always there is the desire; always the fear. Both are in balance before God with such a one, and therefore left undone. Well, almost.’
‘The hair,’ said Kohler.
‘He just touches it,’ blurted Corbeau from the other end of the shop. ‘He doesn’t touch the Virgin’s breasts. He wouldn’t dare to do that.’
‘The Virgin … You said, the Virgin.’
‘That’s what he called her,’ said the sister tartly.
Adrienne de Langlade …
Darkness was complete, the sound of the wind total as St-Cyr and Sister Marie-Madeleine fought their way along a street that, by the funnelling force of the wind, could only be narrow.
A shutter flew off. An iron gate swung shut. Then the wind let up and the sound of it dropped off so suddenly that the steps behind them were momentarily heard before they, too, had ceased.
St-Cyr swore and, pulling the sister with him, took refuge against the gate.
The steps didn’t start up again. Straining to hear them, he felt the trembling in her and knew at once that she’d been the quarry all along.
The damned gate was stuck fast. Yanking on it, he tried to open it and silently cursed as her breath moistened his cheek. ‘Forgive me for bringing him to you,’ she whispered.
‘Who?’ he asked so softly she understood the word only by feeling it on his lips.
‘One of them,’ she whispered. Nothing else.
La Cagoule? he silently demanded of himself and, putting her behind him, faced the street and the darkness.
A bicycle passed by, its lonely blue-shaded light a faint welcome that all too soon departed. An ancient carriage sounded in the distance. On and on it came, but the bastard who had been following them was now very close. And what will it be, eh, shouted St-Cyr into the silence of his thoughts. The knife? The wire garrotte?
The scent of black tobacco came harshly with that of the aniseed that was being chewed since no cigarette could be alight.
Through the darkness, the hooded silhouette grew until, at last, he was able to see the man. Even in a good light, the face would have been all but hidden.
The steps departed quietly. He and the sister were suddenly alone and he felt her tears hot against the fiercely cold air as she kissed his cheek and held him tightly. ‘Forgive me,’ she said again but now …‘I … I forget myself.’
‘You’ve left the convent, Sister. You no longer wear your wedding ring.’ Her hands were freezing.
‘I had to. I couldn’t stay there a moment longer.’
‘Where were you leading me?’
‘To the Kommandant’s house on place des Carmes. To Frau von Mahler, my only hope of refuge.’
6
Two Wehrmacht sentries, wearing goggles and armed with Schmeissers, barred the entrance to von Mahler’s house. On the shrieking of the wind came the Oberfeldwebel’s grunt in broken, brutalized French. ‘That one stays, Sister. The Colonel was positive about it.’
‘But the Chief Inspector’s with me. Frau von Mahler has to hear what we each have to say.’ The torch beam indicated the flagstone path she was to take. ‘Wait here,’ she said in dismay.
‘He will,’ came the savage rejoinder.