Five sets would be needed, but Gabrielle could never be persuaded to leave her son, so six would have to be taken. Giselle, if still alive and safe, simply wouldn’t want to step off her little corner of this planet. ‘And I know I’m not a thief, not even now,’ he breathed. ‘It’s far too dangerous anyway and I really must stay.’
Behind the desk there was a large wall map of Paris. Immediately apparent from the colour-coded flags and their brief notations was the fact that Hermann and this partner of his had merely scratched the surface. Not only had there been a huge increase in the usual sort of blackout crimes, there had been this other aspect.
While some of the sexual attacks would have been against females simply because they had cohabited with the Occupier, one group, as they had discovered, definitely had been targeted: those who were married to, or engaged to, prisoners of war.
There were close on three hundred of these flags, but the earliest of them dated only from 1 December, so the numbers would be much higher. Of those who could be interviewed, all had lost their wedding rings if they had had these with them. Some had lost their hair and/or their clothes. Not all had been raped, some only threatened with such, others beaten but not severely, still others savagely, some even to death and … and recently. Ah, merde!
Female, age 20-25, no identity papers, hair jet-black and glossy, colour of eyes not possible. Beaten, raped and kicked to death. Died of a massive haemorrhage.
The attack had taken place in the passage de l’Hirondelle, a narrow lane off the rue Git-le-Couer in the Sixth, and so close to Hermann’s flat and the House of Madame Chabot it sickened.
Pinned to the left side of the map, Walter had noted many of the things they, too, had discovered or been thinking.
1) Violence escalating?
2) Attacks not random but chosen so as to give that impression?
3) The work of a gang whose sources of information yield potential targets that are then followed up on?
4) Targets selected by a committee or by one individual? If so, could information be leaked about Giselle le Roy so as to put into action the Hoherer SS Oberg’s astute suggestion that we use the girl to bait a trap?
5) Won’t these criminals already have had access to that information? If so, is it their intent to use it before we do?
Had they already done so? St-Cyr had to wonder. Was Oona to be next?
6) Are the press being notified only when felt useful?
A hastily scribbled notation revealed just how desperate things must be.
7) Could the Terroristen be contacted and convinced to help in return for lenience and an end to the shooting of hostages or given the offer of treatment, when captured, as prisoners of war under the articles of the Geneva Convention?
The Resistance-had that been behind the Standartenfuhrer’s taking Gabrielle to dinner? To sound things out?
She would not have gone along with anything, and Langbehn wouldn’t have asked. It was total war and everyone knew it, Walter as well.
Beneath Sonja Remer’s name and the telex, there was a slip of notepaper dated 1610 hours, Thursday 11 February and signed by Oberg.
Informants advise possibility of assaults being committed this evening in the passage de la Trinite and outside the Restaurant Drouant. If confirmed, advise assigning Kohler and St-Cyr to those.
There was no mention of the police academy attack or of the robbery at Au Philateliste Savant, nor was there any of Lulu.
7
Venetian chandeliers gave light, deep Prussian-blue velvet drapes hid the crisscrosses of sticking paper on the windows. Paintings still hung, but there were now so many, some leaned against others on the carpeted floor: a Durer, a Frans Hals-all of them stolen, of course, but why had Hermann decided to come here, to Number 72 the avenue Foch? Why hadn’t he met up with his partner first, if for no other reason than to let him mention Sonja Remer’s being assigned such a pistol, any pistol?
Dejected, the spirit totally beaten, Hermann was staring at those big, once capable hands as if he had done something terrible. Ashen, he didn’t look up, not even when this partner of his, caught between two SS Teutons and hustled by them, was suddenly jerked to a halt before him.
In spite of the presence of the guards, one had to blurt, ‘Mon Dieu, mon vieux, what has happened? Is it Giselle?’
‘Giselle?’ arched Hermann, flinging up his head.
He couldn’t have known of the passage de l’Hirondelle attack-mustn’t be told of it yet. ‘Not Giselle.’
Was it a lie? the look he gave asked, he ignoring the two SS.
‘Here, down this, and have one of these,’ said St-Cyr, ‘then tell me all about it, eh?’
The proffered cigarette wasn’t taken …
‘Rouget. You didn’t tell me who Denise Rouget’s father was!’
‘Ah, merde, I honestly didn’t connect the two. Now toss off the rest of this.’
‘Is it the Remy-Martin Louis XIII? Am I to enjoy an El Rey del Mundo Choix Supreme?’
Sacre nom de nom, what was this? ‘Not at all. Of course the bottle isn’t the Molotov cocktail these two felt before roughing me up. It simply contains the last of the marc we had in the Citroen’s boot.’
‘What the hell are we to do, Louis? Our telephone caller, Elene Artur, was nearly four months pregnant. You know what that belle-epoque plumbing’s like on the rue La Boetie. Her killers tried to flush the evidence but the cord got caught and I had to pull it out so gently. A boy, Louis. I know it’s hard to tell at that stage, but you can, can’t you? A son. She’d been beaten, raped …’
Out it came in a torrent of French the orderly, an Unterschar shy;fuhrer, and his Sturmmann couldn’t understand-even Oberg, head of all of this, couldn’t speak a word of the language. ‘Leave us,’ said St-Cyr in Deutsch.
Unterscharfuhrer Bruno Pruetzmann wasn’t happy. ‘You can’t stay here alone.’
‘Then back off to the other end of the room. This is private.’
They didn’t move, wouldn’t move.
‘We weren’t supposed to find her, Louis. The judge was, but Elene Artur’s killing may not have been done by whoever’s been terrorizing the streets.’
‘Chez Rudi’s, I think. We can’t talk here.’
‘I’VE GOT TO LET OBERG KNOW! If I don’t …’
‘Of course, but it can wait since he’s not likely to come in at this hour. Besides, I’ve got a few things to tell you and something in the car that Rudi wants.’
‘Sonja Remer, age twenty-four years, seven months and five days,’ breathed Rudi-had he felt they wouldn’t be able to retrieve the girl’s handbag? wondered St-Cyr.
‘Madelscharfuhrerin at the age of ten; leader of a Gruppe at eleven, a Ring at twelve. When a Bund Deutscher Madel such as this comes along, others take notice.’
He’d give these two a moment to digest the lump they’d been fed, but would the regurgitation of it sink into Hermann? The idiot looked like death in a greatcoat and should, for he hadn’t only stolen a car from two of the Propagandastaffel, he had had them consigned to scrubbing toilets! ‘Not for her the Glaube und Schonheit, Hermann.’
The Faith and Beauty brigade of the BDMs-girls selected not only for their physical attributes as examples of Aryan Nazism but to be trained further in the arts of homemaking or made to tease secrets from high-ranking civil servants and captains of industry.