The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  ‘This is Legrand. He will look after you from here,’ Giraud said in a perfunctory manner. ‘I will say goodbye and good luck in whatever it is you are here for. Please try to remember what I have said – others will depend on it.’ Grainger nodded; they shook hands and the doctor left.

  ‘Sit down,’ Legrand said politely, indicating a chair. ‘We have a lot to discuss and little time in which to do it. What should I call you? London did not say.’

  ‘Alpha Six – I’m called Alpha Six. Of course, my papers say I am Werner Schmuck.’

  ‘This will not be easy.’ Legrand spread out a tourist map of Paris.

  ‘93 Rue Lauriston, in the 16th, headquarters of La Carlingue. They will take your man there.’ He prodded the spot with his index finger. ‘It’s an unremarkable building, six floors of offices over a basement, but once inside your man will be lucky to come out alive. You will have to get him before they do. Have you a plan?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then tell me what you need and I will arrange it for you. Tonight you will stay in my home. There is someone I want you to meet. I have invited her to take supper with us.’

  *

  ‘This is Cigale,’ Legrand grinned, his broad-featured face crumpling into a rugged heap of lines. He ushered a small-boned, petite young woman into the dining room where his wife was organising a maid to set out the evening meal. She was not what Grainger had been expecting. She looked too delicate to be involved in this kind of game – more suited to a fashion salon with her carefully coiffed hair and elegant little dress.

  ‘Bonsoir, Mademoiselle Cigale.’

  She looked at him critically for a moment, seeing in his eyes what he was thinking. ‘Don’t let the image deceive you,’ she said, ‘it’s only there to fool the Germans.’

  That caught him off-guard and he turned in the direction of the sideboard laden with food. ‘This looks good.’

  Legrand nodded. ‘There is still stuff to be had in the markets,’ he said as they sat at the table, ‘but the rationing is getting worse and they tell me it is very hard in the villages.’ They sat in silence while the maid served soup.

  Legrand waited until she had left the room. ‘Right, let’s get down to business.’

  Cigale looked at Grainger across the table and it struck him how pretty she was. ‘Do you know Kasha?’ she asked.

  ‘No, you will have to point me at him.’

  ‘That’ll be easy. He’s very tall, blonde and handsome. You won’t mistake him when you see him.’

  ‘We need a car,’ Grainger continued, ‘something fast but not too flashy – a Citroen Avant would do the job – and spare fuel. Stuff the boot with jerry cans – enough to get us to Lyon.’

  Legrand lifted a spoonful of soup and paused, letting it hover in front of his mouth. He blew on it. ‘How do you propose to lift him?’ He sipped loudly on the spoon.

  ‘Intercept them on the road. Use my SD credentials and tell them to hand him over.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit simple?’

  ‘I like simple, simple is good, simple rarely goes wrong. I don’t like complicated things – the wheels usually come off at a critical moment.’

  ‘It’s your call.’

  ‘It is,’ Grainger chuckled, and got down to the soup. ‘Oh, and we ought to have a couple of heavies to keep in reserve – just in case it turns into a shooting match.’

  Cigale looked at Legrand and then at Grainger. She gave a little shrug. ‘London says you are good at this kind of thing. Je suis contente.’

  Legrand looked less convinced. ‘OK, if that’s what you want I can arrange it.’

  Grainger sensed the scepticism in Legrand. ‘Don’t worry, I’m an expert in this kind of thing – liberating bodies – it’s what I do – that’s why I was seconded into SOE.

  CHAPTER 9

  The 16th arrondissement

  Rue Lauriston was narrow. It made the buildings feel tall, reducing the sky to a narrow oblong strip high overhead and, although the windows of No. 93 were large, there was not a lot of light to be had. Inside, the rooms were gloomy, not helped by the brown wood panelling that clad the lower half of the walls. It was a dismal aspect that greeted those unfortunates taken there against their will. In winter the impoverished heating system, with its calcium-choked pipes and rumbling iron radiators, was fed by an ancient coke furnace, buried in the basement. It had a gaping firebox into which, rumour had it, more than one interrogation victim had been shoved, head first – and held there until the skull popped.

  Schreiber pushed open the front door and was confronted by a short, coarsely dressed man wearing a shabby pin-striped suit and patent leather shoes. He looked the gangster that he was. The man, who had been sitting on a chair just inside the door, got to his feet and made a move to bar the way into the building. ‘Monsieur!’ He growled the word aggressively, asserting his authority.

  ‘Gestapo,’ Schreiber said curtly, taking his badge and pushing it contemptuously into the other man’s face. ‘Show me the office of Monsieur Bonny.’

  The man immediately acquiesced; he would not argue with the paymasters. He led the way up a wide marble staircase to the first level where Bonny, second in command of the organisation, occupied a grandly decorated and spacious office. Schreiber looked around him, comparing it with his own modest quarters in Berlin. These people are criminals, he reminded himself. They surround themselves with the loot from their victims, but they serve a function for the Reich and they are cheap and effective – enthusiastic collaborators, little more than pirates and plunderers, but they do a job.

  Schreiber thought he might have an affinity with Bonny, who had been a detective before he fell from grace and was imprisoned for corruption five years earlier. For a short while he had been an inspector with the Paris police and had once been commended as the best detective in France. Not any more – he was just another collaborator on the make.

  ‘Bonjour, Kriminalinspector,’ Bonny smiled ingratiatingly. He was a slight man with a pinched face and dark black hair; a narrow, tightly clipped moustache clung to the very edge of his thin upper lip. The smile only made him look devious and Schreiber instinctively disliked him. ‘I understand you are making inquiries about a Polish spy who calls himself Kasha – not his real name, of course. How can I help?’

  ‘Have you questioned him?’

  Bonny inclined his head and turned a pale manicured hand, just half a turn, making a gesture that spoke of a slight evasion, of a weaselly excuse. ‘Not yet, at least not here. The gendarmerie have spoken with him but that, of course, revealed nothing. He is being held at the prison in Fresnes. We have arranged to bring him here; our methods are more persuasive.’

  ‘Do you have the package he was carrying, or do the gendarmes have it?’

  Bonny looked puzzled. ‘What package? He was carrying nothing except his false papers and this pistol.’ He delved into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a small handgun.

  ‘CZ 27.’ Schreiber took it in his hand and examined the frame. ‘SD standard model,’ he said, as much to himself as the other man. It was probably issued to Kraus. He would get Becker to check the serial number and see who it was issued to, but in his mind it already convinced him that Kraus was dead – Kasha the killer.

  Before Schreiber could say more they were interrupted. The door half opened and a man in paramilitary dress poked his head through. ‘Sorry, boss, but the girls upstairs think they have an answer for you.’

  Bonny smiled. ‘If you would care to come with me, Inspector, you will see how we get our results. There is a lift we can take.’ Inside the lift an attendant slid shut the trellis gate and pulled on a lever. The lift car ascended methodically, the motor humming; it gave a little clank as it passed each floor. It jolted to a halt at the sixth and they stepped out into the corridor.

  When they reached their destination and entered the interrogation room Schreiber was confronted by the sight of three women and a badly beaten man. Two of the women were in un
iform, dark grey with smartly pressed lapels and tightly pleated skirts. Their military cut half-length jackets were strapped at the waist with black belts, each hung with a pistol holster – 0.25 calibre, small but enough to disable a man if not easily kill him. They were both above average height for women. One had black hair rolled in a tight bun behind her head. Her face was quite hard and shrew-like and the cheek bones were sharply defined; she stood on legs that looked too thin even for her bony frame. The other had much lighter hair, loosely permed and worn at mid-length. She had a much rounder, more pleasant face, and it crossed Schreiber’s mind that she looked not unlike his daughter.

  ‘This is Hilda,’ Bonny said, indicating the dark haired woman, ‘and this is Renata,’ he said, pointing to the other one. ‘They were given to us on loan for interrogation techniques; they were both prison guards at the camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. They are very talented and they speak Polish, so they may be of use to you with this Kasha prisoner.’

  Schreiber said nothing. He was looking at the third woman, who was roughly dressed in a boiler suit. She was the largest woman Schreiber could recall ever having seen; she was over six feet tall and built like a Russian wrestler. He had heard stories of monstrous female wrestlers in the Soviet Union and this is how he imagined they must be. Her dark hair was cropped short to just below her ear lobes. Her face showed traces of make-up where the powder had run with sweat, and lipstick – bright red – had been carefully applied to her large and slightly crooked mouth. She was holding the beaten man in an arm lock, standing by the open window.

  ‘Well,’ Bonny said, looking directly at the man. ‘Are you ready to tell me the names?’ The man glared defiantly back but said nothing. Bonny raised his eyebrows. ‘Changed our mind, have we?’ He nodded at the Russian wrestler. ‘Edith.’

  She tightened the arm lock and the man winced, then she turned him to face the window. Her forearms were thick and muscular, like those of a man who has spent too much time working out. Schreiber guessed she must spend much of her time in the gymnasium; the veins on her solid biceps stood out clearly just under her skin. With her free hand she lifted her victim by the back of his belt and hung him out of the window. The man screamed that he would tell. She hauled him back in and marched him up to face Bonny.

  Bonny smiled with satisfaction. ‘Well, have we reconsidered our decision?’ he said in a voice that might have been addressing a child.

  ‘Mateo Lafarge and Christine Malpasse. They will meet at Café de la Tour, Rue Croix Rouge in Montparnasse – tonight. The patron, Henri Gautier, is the cell leader.’ He began to weep as he faced what he had done. The others would die and he would have to live with it all his life.

  ‘Good. You see it was not so difficult after all, now was it?’ He looked at the woman he had called Edith and gestured with a slight jerk of his head. The woman flexed her arms, bent her knees slightly and, hoisting the prisoner over her head, walked him to the open window and threw him out into a free fall. Six floors below he hit the street with an audible thud. Schreiber said nothing but Bonny was delighted with the performance. ‘Thank you, ladies,’ he said in mock courtesy.

  As they descended in the lift Schreiber turned to Bonny. ‘Do not do that with my prisoner. I want him alive and in my custody. Do I make myself clear?’ Bonny looked slightly crestfallen at this deprecation of his methods. He had hoped to impress this man from the Gestapo; after all, he was only using their methods.

  ‘I am staying at the Hotel Balzac; here is the number.’ Schreiber passed him a sheet of headed notepaper he had taken from his hotel room. ‘When do you propose to move him?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow – Friday. We’ll give him a bit of time to stew. The delay should work on his nerves.’

  ‘Let me know when you have him here – and do not question him until I am present.’

  Bonny gave a subservient nod. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘whatever you say, Kriminalinspector.’

  ‘Don’t bother to show me out, I know my way.’ As he reached the bottom of the stairs he saw the man who had first tried to bar his way. He was asleep on the chair, mouth gaping open and snoring like a pig. Schreiber deliberately kicked the chair with his foot as he passed, causing the man to jerk awake, but Schreiber had gone before the man could gather his senses and speak.

  The Hotel Balzac, in Rue Balzac, was close to the Arc de Triomphe. A few months earlier Hitler had walked from the monument down the Champs-Élysées with a handful of officers to see for himself the subjugation of the city. It had been suggested then that he hold a triumphal parade but he had rejected the idea, saying there was still more to do and the war was not yet over. On this Schreiber found himself in rare agreement with his Führer.

  The hotel was more extravagant than he would have approved but a room had been requisitioned by his office without reference to him. It was decorated in the style of Louis XIV. It carried an air of ostentation that left him feeling uncomfortable. He considered himself a simple man. He lived in a world of functionality and logic, and abhorred what he termed French fancies, but the room had its own telephone and that met with his approval.

  He removed his coat and hat and hung them neatly in a very large burr walnut wardrobe. Next he took out his notebook and sat down at a small marble-topped writing table. He carefully recorded the events of the day, noting down the episode he had witnessed and the conduct of Inspector Bonny – as the Carlingue deputy chief now styled himself. Turning back the pages he reviewed what he knew about the case of Helmut Kandler and the missing Kraus. There wasn’t much but he knew as a matter of instinct that the Polish spy Kasha would shed some light on things. If Kandler was passing information to an enemy of the state then Kandler himself had to be a spy. There was something in the files he had been fishing around for, but what?

  The phone rang – a long musical tingling note. He lifted the receiver and noticed it had a perfumed smell to it: they had put cologne water on the phone. It flashed through his thoughts that this was truly decadent. ‘Ja!’ he announced in a blunt voice.

  ‘It is Becker, Kriminalinspector.’

  ‘Do you have something for me?’

  ‘I do. The files – the cases listed in Herr Kandler’s notebook – I’ve checked them. They are all terminated files. The cases had been marked closed, but when I looked into them I found they had been closed by Herr Kandler – not the investigating officer.’

  There was a lull in the conversation. Schreiber took stock and tried to find a pattern, but nothing immediately came to him. If Kandler was closing files was he protecting these people, throwing the investigators off the scent? Was he part of a ring, with Kasha perhaps the ringmaster?

  ‘Go through the files again. See if you can find a common link; in particular, I am looking for any mention of a Polish agent who styles himself Kasha.’

  ‘I will do it right away Kriminalinspector.’

  ‘And Becker …’

  ‘Yes, Kriminalinspector.’

  ‘…remember – don’t tell anybody what you are doing.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good. Call me back if you find anything.’

  He went back to his notebook and recorded the conversation. ‘Why,’ he wrote, ‘if Kandler is closing files was Kasha paying him to do it?’

  CHAPTER 10

  The Prison at Fresnes

  Kasha waited for what was to come next. He had no illusions. Simply being a member of the Polish underground would be enough; his interrogators would know he had information of special interest to them but, other than a brief interview when he arrived, no one had come near him – and there was the mystery. He had killed the SD man and that should have been enough to have him summarily executed, but he was still alive. That wasn’t right. The only explanation he could find was that they knew his mission. Could Kandler have left some evidence behind? He was sure he was dead; he’d seen him go under the train. No one could have survived that, or had he? Maybe he had survived, long enough to be interrogated. He d
ismissed it. Kandler was dead, he’d seen him die.

  The cell was small with three bunks racked against one wall, but he was the only inmate. There were others, he’d seen them on the landings where the cells were let into the walls, each one with its pale-brown painted door; oak frames encased in a steel jacket with a tiny peephole through which his captors would come and look, just to be sure he had not committed suicide – cheated them. They would not want to be robbed of their right to despatch him as painfully as possible. Some of the other prisoners he’d seen were dressed in the remnants of uniforms: downed British pilots and French army officers. There were partisans too – Poles, Czechs, Hungarians – and les résistants. He could hear them at night calling through the windows, tapping messages on the heating pipes that ran through the backs of the cells for the full length of the block – though the heating was turned off. The cold was bitter. Ice formed on the inside walls of the cells, lowering the resistance of the men held inside them. It made them more susceptible to persuasion. Put a man in a bath of ice water and sooner rather than later he will tell you everything.

  In one corner there was a stained galvanised bucket; the acrid odour of ammonia seeped from it, redolent of its function, relief for night soil. It was better to empty bowel and bladder when there was the opportunity during the day than pass the night with that stench.

  He sat on the bottom bunk and scoured his mind, concentrating on escape. There were only three ways out of Fresnes: feet first in a wooden box, transfer to another interrogation unit, or shown the front door and told to go because nobody was interested in you any longer. The last of these was no more than a fantasy that lurked in the minds of the deluded, those who fed on prison rumours. In captivity there is a plentiful supply of hopeful, good-news stories – all made up, of course, prison myths passed around from man to man in the rare moments of relief in the exercise yard, suckled on the desperate hope that one day … maybe. The reality was bleaker. The absence of a prisoner was more likely to be down to summary execution than fortuitous release. Nevertheless, every time a prisoner disappeared there was no shortage of good luck rumours as desperate men grasped at the thin straws of hope.