‘We have reason to believe Mademoiselle Arcuri’s in grave danger.’
‘We?’ asked the woman.
‘Gestapo Central. The Sturmbannfuhrer Boemelburg, my chief.’
‘Then you do have ranks. What’s yours – just so that I know with whom I’m dealing?’
‘Captain, Countess – a Hauptsturmfuhrer.’
‘Captain … ah yes. My son had such a rank. It has a nice ring to it – conjuring images of dashing young men in uniform, isn’t that so? Do you prefer war to fighting crime?’
Was she trying to provoke him to hide the fact she’d been expecting someone else, was still looking for that visitor? ‘Crime doesn’t stop just because there’s a war, Countess.’
She gave him a brief smile as if to say, Touche. ‘I would have thought in your case, Inspector, the two were one and the same. Tell me something, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer Kohler, do you enjoy interrogating the French? Which are more fun? The men or the women? The young or the old? The Resistance …? Oh, we’ve some of them about here, too, and that’s why Gabrielle wouldn’t dare to come here.’
Kohler drew out his cigarettes and offered them. Surprisingly, the countess accepted one, and when he thumbed the lighter for her, she held his hand and let him feel how cold and calm were her fingers.
The dark eyes looked questioningly at him. She tossed her head and drew in gratefully, filling her lungs then blowing smoke up into the fog. She’d fix him. They’d visit the pigs.
‘Are you married, Captain?’ she asked, indicating they were to leave the courtyard by the back gate.
‘Very much so,’ snorted Kohler. ‘My Gerda keeps house in Wasserburg.’
‘That’s near Munich, on the River Inn?’
Was she toying with him? ‘Yes, yes, it’s on the Inn. Her father’s farm. She’s happier there. We’ve two boys in the Army, both in Russia, I suppose.’
‘You don’t keep in touch?’ she asked, smiling knowingly. She had his measure now.
‘The mails are not what they should be, Countess. I have to move about a good deal.’
Roasting the Gestapo – one ought to enjoy it! ‘Such a lame answer, Captain? Ah, Mon Dieu, be honest, eh? It’s a sort of holiday, an extended vacation? Yes, me I can imagine that is how it must be for you and lots of others. The clubs and cabarets, the girls, ah yes, and then touring about our beloved France in one of the Surete’s cars. King of everything. One of the master race. Have you a mistress, or are Gestapo inspectors allowed such things?’
‘We’re kept rather busy,’ said Kohler drily. ‘Apart from the odd prostitute to calm the loins, Countess, they don’t really give us much time off. Usually twice a month if we’re lucky.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he preferred French whores to German ones. He’d like the young ones, that’s for sure. Men like this always did. Most men too.
So, she would say nothing more of it. She would lead him on a little walk and stall for time. Perhaps the general would arrive and put a stop to him. Perhaps.
Beyond the walls, the grounds opened into a park-like setting whose focus was the maze. But they didn’t head for it. Instead, they went off to the right along a road, the land dipping down to barren trees and scattered farmsteads, pig-pens, chickens, ducks, geese and guinea hens, a flock of goats.
Kohler was impressed. The sow was huge. They must have received special dispensation from the local Kommandant to raise as many pigs as they wished. The woman had friends in high places then. Normally only one pig was allowed. There’d been no sign of her having had to billet any officers either.
She put a boot right in the shit and he was forced to follow. As she closed the gate behind them, the sow snorted angrily and lifted its dripping snout from the slops.
The woman called out, ‘Judith, be nice to our Gestapo visitor, eh, my sweet? He likes you. You can pat her, Inspector. Tickle her behind the ears.’
Crossing the pen, they ducked as they entered a thatch-roofed shed, only to find the young ones still crowded inside. Perhaps forty or fifty of them. ‘Countess …’
‘Yes?’
‘Could we go somewhere else? A private talk …?’ he asked.
Had he had enough already? ‘Me, I thought being German, you’d like to see them.’
‘So, okay, I like pigs. Now maybe you’ll tell me what the game is?’
‘Game? But what is this, Captain Kohler? Each morning I must make my rounds. If you want to ask questions, then ask them but don’t take up my time.’
At least twenty piglets were at his shoes and trouser cuffs. There were no runny noses. Kohler stooped and gathered one under each arm.
Grinning, he said, ‘They need to be castrated, Countess. At home we bite them off.’
‘Here we are more civilized,’ she retorted. ‘So, what is it you want to ask?’
Kohler set the squealing piglets down. ‘First, the identity of this boy.’ He dragged out the photographs. Her breath steamed in the rank air. There was nothing quite like pig manure to clear the nostrils and the brain. All about them there was the squealing, butting, nudging turmoil.
The yearlings were kept in separate pens that gave on to the far yard. One boar had mounted a young sow. Grunts and squeals …
The woman’s dark eyes flashed professionally over the copulation before focusing on the photograph. ‘I don’t know him. He’s not from around here.’
Naked as the day he’d been born and such a pretty boy.
The Bavarian manoeuvred himself so that her back was to one of the pens and there was no easy escape.
‘Take another look – this one, eh?’ He handed her one of Thibault’s shots of the body.
For just a split second there was hesitation – he’d swear to it – then she shook her head, ignored the rutting that went on and on behind her. ‘I’ve never seen him. Perhaps the local Prefet of Police, Monsieur Hector Poulin, could help you, Inspector.’
Nothing in the eyes. How could a woman like this have become such a competent liar? ‘What about your daughter-in-law’s maid, Yvette Noel?’
‘A silly girl. Me, I’m sorry to hear she was killed but… I did not know her well. Gabrielle seldom brought her here.’
Kohler drew himself up. Her forehead was at eye-level. The piglets kept at his ankles. Was it the salt they liked? ‘And I didn’t say she’d been murdered, Countess.’
‘But you said …? Two murders? I have thought…’
The performance wasn’t quite good enough. ‘Why not level with me, Countess? It’ll save us both time and it just might save your daughter-in-law’s life.’
Merde! What was she to do? ‘A coffee, I think, and a marc. Look, I’ll tell you what I can but it isn’t much.’
He took her by the arm, was surprised at how readily she accepted the gesture.
He hasn’t seen the boy, she told herself. He doesn’t know Gabrielle is here.
Kohler, his hat and coat hanging in a closet somewhere, stood waiting in what the countess had called her Green Room. Though it was huge, high-ceilinged and draughty, there was about the room a sense of intimacy. Curtains made of seven-teenth-century French embroidery in creams, soft yellows, beiges and greens gave vegetable hangings that matched the coverings on the armchairs that had once belonged to the Duke of Tallyrand.
She’d said he could sit in them. She’d asked him to wait a few moments – now more than a half-hour. Three cigarettes! And why had she made him feel nervous?
A magnificent Bouelle armoire, in ornate gold and mirrored jet, matched the desk. An ivory humidor held pre-war cigars. It was all he could do to desist but he had the thought then that the woman would be watching for just such a thing.
The carpet, an Aubusson perhaps, was of flowers and vines. Bits of sculpture were everywhere, lending a slightly Roman touch.
From any of the windows he had a full view of the courtyard and he wondered if this had been intended. The Citroen looked decidedly out of place. The dogs still hadn’t come back and he wondered then, as he had off and on since she’d released them, if she’d done so deliberately.