‘One can’t say much, can one?’ said Oona. ‘Repeatedly he writes as though she will do everything he says and expects; she, in turn, as though she has.’
But had she? Hadn’t she arranged to be taken to the Hotel Ritz where at least two hundred francs would have been received for a simple pass, four hundred for the half-hour, six for the hour? A steady income? She was handsome-a framed photo taken before the Defeat revealed her to have been a little on the comfortable side but she would have lost all that, would have had the figure trimmed down hard by all that walking if nothing else. The hair was of shoulder length and parted in the middle, swept back to expose droplet earrings of great delicacy that framed a look that was steadfast, serious, and wanting what? he had to ask. To be understood, to be treated as an individual of some worth? Had she been trapped even then?
All over the city and the country it was happening. ‘She’s lucky her assailant didn’t kill her,’ he said. ‘Mon Dieu, forgive me, children. I only meant …’
They looked at him with moistening eyes, rightly feeling betrayed by the harshness of his judgement but had the life of a detective not forced him into a prison of his own?
‘Come on, you two, let’s go into our room,’ said Oona. “Let’s snuggle up and leave the chief inspector to think a little more about what he says.’
‘Oona, I’m not like Hermann. Certainly he constantly reminds me to mend my ways. It’s only that the policeman in me sometimes forgets. Once a cop, always a cop.’
‘And the gun in that handbag?’
‘Is another matter but not entirely.’
* * *
The Ford’s heater was throaty, Didier Valois, owner-operator of the marechal’s Baton, less than cooperative. Kohler sighed as he hauled out the bankroll and, in the feeble light from the judge’s cigar, counted them off. ‘Five hundred … No, let’s make it a thousand.’
‘Two. Things are expensive these days and Monsieur le Juge will have my balls put on display before the blade falls if he ever finds out that I’ve spoken to you.’
An interesting comment Louis would have appreciated. ‘Two thousand it is, but with the offer of a bonus.’
And didn’t the Boche have all the money and think they could buy everything? ‘Sometimes the judge has me pick him up just to make sure he gets home.’
It was a start but one had best go carefully. ‘Under the empire of alcohol is he at such times?’
‘He’s not an alcoholic, only sometimes takes a little too much. It … it depends.’
On whom he’d been with, but that had best not be asked just yet. ‘The Folies-Bergere?’
‘Inspector, I’m not the only one he hires. There are others,’
‘Of course there are.’
Pressure was needed, otherwise this Kripo was going to dig a grave that would hold them both. ‘The Cercle de l’Union Interalliee shy;.’
That private club of clubs and better even than the Cercle Europeen since everyone who was anyone had to be a member of both but only some of the latter were allowed into the former. Men like Gaston Morel, no matter how useful they might be or how hard they tried, would never be welcomed into the Interalliee. It was just that simple. Located on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore at number 33, opened in 1917 and counting that arch supplier of cannon fodder, the Marechal Foch, as a member, now deceased, the hotel particulier was sumptuous in all regards and had a history that went back a further two hundred years to Louis Chevalier, president of the Parliament of Paris, and his sister, Madame le Vieux, but Louis would have said, Go easy, Hermann. Don’t be rash.
The Interalliee, the union of the Inter-Allied, had been started as a place for, amongst others, American aviators to stay when in Paris on leave, and when that other war had ended, this use had continued but been expanded to include others, especially now with the club’s military reputation and the Defeat.
Herr Kohler was thinking the matter over and that was good, thought Valois. The judge had stated most clearly on a number of occasions the names not only of the club’s most illustrious members-pillars of society-but more especially those of the new ones, among them the generals Karl Albrecht Oberg and Ernst von Schaumburg.
‘The Casino de Paris?’ hazarded Herr Kohler, but had he asked it so as to distract from the other?
‘The Apollo,’ said Valois levelly. ‘Sometimes the judge likes a little change.’
I’ll bet he does, snorted Kohler silently. Both were on the rue de Clichy in Pigalle where lots of those delinquent prisoner-of-war wives trolled the music halls, bars and pavements before lining up outside the nearest maison de passe with their clients. ‘The Naturiste, the Chez Eve and the Romance?’ he asked.
Sister clubs on place Pigalle. ‘The Bal Tabarin also.’
Number 36 rue Victor Masse and in the area, an old style cancan that always showed lots of leg and frilly-clad crotches. A man of many tastes. ‘And after a good feed at the Lapin Agile or some other such trough, the Boeuf sur le Toit, eh, at its new home in a wing of the Hotel Georges?’
An SS and Gestapo trough! ‘Inspector, Monsieur le Juge has many contacts he must consult on the business of the courts. Who am I to …’
‘Entertains them, does he?’
‘Is it not necessary?’
‘Regine Trudel’s La Source de Joie?’
Why had he asked if he knew all the answers? ‘There, also.’
The Fountainhead of Joy on the avenue Frochot in Pigalle and definitely better than those who trolled the streets. ‘Ah, bon, mon ami, out with the rest. That wife of his is scared to death of his contracting a heavy dose of the clap. That daughter of his knows all about it too, and may well have a hidden life of her own for all I know at the moment, so give.’
Perhaps if nothing else, this would stop Herr Kohler. ‘La Maison de Plaisir du Maitre.’
The House of the Master’s Pleasure, the SS brothel on the avenue shy; de Wagram. ‘Your judge has an interesting after-dinner life, doesn’t he?’
‘I … I wouldn’t know. I simply do as I’m told.’
‘So tell me where you picked him up last night and don’t lie to me.’
‘Inspector, as I’ve already told you, he gets rides from other taxi drivers, from friends, too, among those he entertains. He must.’
‘Has a blanket pass to be out after curfew, does he?’
An Ausweis. ‘Of course.’
Cigar smoke filled the car. Herr Kohler fiddled with the windscreen wiper switch and checked to see that the blades were not frozen fast. He didn’t say, I’m waiting. He merely implied it. ‘The Lido. Monsieur le Juge, he … he likes to watch the girls there.’
‘While they bathe topless in the swimming pool and sometimes, if the law’s not looking, completely bare the rest for the tips they’re bound to receive?’
‘That is correct.’
‘And now for the hard part, since there’s room for two in that contraption of yours.’
‘He didn’t take anyone from there. The girl hadn’t been feeling well. The headaches-perhaps the onslaught of the flu.’
Oh-oh. ‘What girl?’
Did this one always insist on digging his own grave deeper than necessary? ‘The one he often takes to the flat he keeps on the rue La Boetie.’
Scheisse, a petite amie! ‘Her name?’
‘He’ll kill me if I tell you. Madame Rouget might find out. She’s a …’
‘Very jealous woman? Surely the judge has told you that?’
‘Elene Artur. She’s … she’s an indochinoise, you understand, but her skin is almost white and I think her father must have been French, the mother the half if not a little more.’
And so much for racism. The generals and the boys who flocked to the Lido would have been fascinated, but had she made that telephone call and, if so, why? ‘Keeps her at the flat, does he?’