Dollmaker

by J. Robert Janes

  Taking another step, he threw a hand forward to steady himself. ‘I didn’t want to do it!’ he cried out, or something like that, and, fountaining up his guts, clutched his stomach and bowed his head in shame.

  The rain parted the pale, short-cropped blond hair and coursed down the raw-boned, pimpled face. ‘You’re just a kid,’ swore Kohler. ‘Hey, you’re not the one I want.’

  Getting out into the rain, he went to the boy. ‘Look, I understand how it must have been. They held you. They brought you up to her and put it in, so okay. What’s done is done. Now go and get into the back of my lorry. Try to get some sleep while I sort this out.’

  He had to help the boy. The bed of the lorry was too high and the kid, though he tried, couldn’t possibly climb up.

  When he had finally pushed him in and had tied the tarpaulin down, Kohler heard the others coming forward. They met between the headlamps. Thirty to one … were the odds that high? Ach! Did he really have to take on the whole crew?

  Shoulder to shoulder and crowded, they formed a phalanx behind their cook and Otto Baumann and the Second Engineer.

  Though pissed to the gills and still clutching bottles, they were rapidly sobering.

  ‘You’re blocking the road,’ said Death’s-head.

  Kohler wanted to wipe that stupid grin from the lark-eyed bastard and saw again in memory that poor girl’s head face down in a toilet.

  Rain soaked the Kaiser moustache, causing it to droop, and poured from the black peak of Otto Baumann’s forage cap.

  ‘Why aren’t you fellows sleeping it off in Quiberon?’

  Was Herr Kohler serious? ‘Duty calls,’ said Baumann. ‘U-297 has to be stuffed, Inspector. She wants it in her. She’s greedy for it. All hands are to help. Our C.-in-C, Herr Freisen, waits for nothing and no one.’

  So be it. ‘Then what about Paulette Trocquer, eh, and what about her mother?’

  The rain stung his face but did not seem to bother them at all.

  It was Death’s-head who, the grin vanishing, said, ‘She went home, I suppose. Our loss is her gain, perhaps. Who’s to say?’

  ‘As for the mother, Herr Kohler,’ said the Second Engineer, ‘why do you ask us? An old hag in a wheelchair?’

  ‘Fine. I’m arresting the three of you and the boy for the murders of Paulette le Trocquer and her mother.’

  He was really serious about it. ‘And that of the shopkeeper?’ asked the cook. The others stared at the Gestapo’s loneliest detective.

  ‘You boys let the Captain out of jail. I saw him in his car at the shop after I found the mother.’

  The surprise was genuine – or was it? The lark’s touch of insanity leapt into Schultz’s dark eyes. ‘But Vati is in the lock-up. Otto, here, has the key.’

  ‘Then why isn’t he with him?’

  ‘Because our Dollmaker sleeps and whoever takes the lorry back will be bringing him his breakfast.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  An angry murmur went through the crew. They pressed closer. Baumann held them back with outstretched arms. ‘Where is your partner?’ he asked.

  Was the party about to get rough? ‘Not at the pianist’s house. I’ve been trying to find him.’

  ‘What about the woman?’ asked Death’s-head. The grin became a leer.

  ‘What about her?’ asked Kohler evenly.

  ‘Nothing. We only wondered how she was getting on without our Vati’s cock.’

  The bastard. Hadn’t they had enough?

  ‘The child,’ asked Baumann, ‘and the father, please, Herr Kohler. Where are they?’

  ‘With the Préfet, I think. The woman, too, and my partner.’ He damn well didn’t know where they were, but what the hell, there was no harm in trying, or was there? ‘Kerjean did say something about looking for the husband in one of the tumuli.’

  One of the passage graves. ‘Which one?’

  This had come from the Second Engineer. ‘Look, I don’t know, do I? I sent Kerjean home to Vannes but he must have gone to the house instead. Oh, that reminds me. Hang on a minute. I’ve brought your cook a little present.’

  ‘Don’t think of leaving,’ cautioned Baumann. ‘Not now. Not when you’ve just accused us of murder.’

  ‘I won’t. I’m only going to the cab. It’s on the seat.’

  ‘And this, my friend, is pointing right at your guts. It’s loaded,’ said Baumann. ‘Please don’t make me guilty of murder.’

  At 7.30 a.m. Berlin Time, it was very dark and cold in the rain, and the hammering of the droplets on the backs of St-Cyr’s bare hands stung so much, the uneasiness within him only increased.

  For some time now Victor Kerjean had remained silent. That he wanted his gun back and felt betrayed was all too clear. Now he poured gasoline into the Renault’s fuel tank while the Sûreté, who had his gun in a pocket, cupped hands about the nozzle and the opening so as to keep out the rain if possible.

  There had been three jerry cans crammed into the tiny boot and only one of them had been full.

  ‘Jean-Louis, Hélène will only tell the Nazis about my son – they’ll make her. She’s done for anyway, isn’t that so? Let us take her back to the house. She can write a farewell to her husband and the child. Please, I beg it of you. The lives of too many others are at stake. Our work … The Germans won’t be staying long. The invasion will come.’

  The refuelling came to an end. Hélène Charbonneau heard St-Cyr desperately trying to fit the gas cap on. At last he succeeded, then the two of them stood out there while she sat alone inside straining to hear what they were saying about her.

  ‘Victor, I have a murder to solve and until that is done, I cannot …’

  ‘You cannot? You who call yourself a patriot? Oh mon Dieu, mon ami, don’t try to play the pious, big-city detective with me. Give me back my gun and let me present the truth to her.’

  The jerry can was heavy and as a weapon it would be eminently suitable. Kerjean was quick, tough and muscular. The blow that had knocked him out had been lucky and totally unexpected.

  Now it would not be so easy. ‘Potassium cyanide? How, please, did she come by it, Victor? Rat poison, is this what you are thinking as a way of explaining the coroner’s report which will have to be done?’

  ‘No one will care. Do you think Kaestner will? Hah! he wants her dead.’

  ‘And you, Victor?’

  Why must Jean-Louis make him say it again? Was Hélène listening? Was that it, eh? ‘Me also, of course. There are my wife and my daughters, yes? And my grandchildren – I’ve eight of them, did I tell you? Eight. Four boys and four girls and two more on the way.’

  ‘Let us be patient.’

  ‘Patient!’ The jerry can slammed against the car and rang hollowly. ‘You ask for patience when time waits for no one?’

  ‘Kaestner may believe she has already taken the cyanide. To him, she has no other choice, and this may well be our only chance. But there is also my partner, Victor. Hermann will certainly have come up with something and until I have a chance to talk with him, no one is taking cyanide or shooting themselves, and that, my friend, is final.’

  Kerjean turned abruptly away and in the darkness and the rain, and with his dark overcoat and cap, it was so very difficult to see him. St-Cyr hesitated. He heard the can hit one of the others. The tyre iron? he wondered. Was Victor reaching for it?

  There was only the sound of the rain. Hélène Charbonneau held her breath for as long as she could. What were they doing out there? she asked herself. It was not fair – nothing was. Victor had been a good friend but now … now. Yvon knew things the Germans would want to know – Angélique did too – and what was Victor to do about the two of them? Kill them? she demanded.

  Ah damn that lousy shopkeeper, she cried and clenched her fists. Ah damn Paulette. Why could that girl not have tried to understand that things weren’t as they seemed, that Angélique had been upset but hadn’t realized the truth?

  She pressed the back of her bandaged left hand hard aga
inst her lips to steady herself. Victor was right. She should kill herself. It was the only solution. Dead, there might be a small chance for Angélique and Yvon. She had to think of them and that was what Johann had tried to tell her.

  ‘Victor …’ she heard the Sûreté saving. ‘Victor, please don’t try anything foolish. Let us find the husband and the daughter, then let us see where things lie.’

  Only the rain gave answer, and when she rolled the window further down, the droplets struck her face.

  ‘Jean-Louis, I am warning you. As a section head of the Front de la Libération de la Bretagne, I cannot fall into their hands.’

  ‘You won’t. If I have to, I will shoot you. You have my word on it.’

  The boot was closed.

  ‘Then let us find the father and hope the Captain is looking for him too, and will have the child with him.’

  They got into the car but now Victor sat behind the steering wheel and the Sûreté was forced to get into the front beside him and she had to think, was it clever of Victor to have done this? And she had to sadly nod and say, Yes … Yes, it was.

  ‘We will try the Dolmen of Crucuno first, Jean-Louis,’ he said, ‘since it is much closer, and then, I think, The Tumulus of Saint-Michel.’

  Three kilometres east of Plouharnel and the road to Quiberon, rain flooded the narrow, darkened streets of Carnac. Schultz spared the village little. Jamming the accelerator down, he gave the lorry all it had on the only hill worth mentioning in the whole of the Morbihan. All too soon, though, the beam of the headlamps cut an angry swath across the white-plastered front of a small hotel whose giant letters gave THE GRAVE OF THE DRUIDS – THE TUMULUS OF SAINT-MICHEL – and poured water off each of them.

  Ah merde, sighed Kohler, not liking it one bit.

  His own lorry soon screeched to a halt beside them and both raced their engines and trained the beams of their headlamps nakedly on the hotel in spite of the black-out regulations.

  At last the portly owner got the message. Timidly the door opened and, on seeing that it really was the Germans, he stepped out to stand in the rain, shielding his eyes from the glare.

  The maroon velour dressing-gown with its jade-green collar and cord had to have been left by some down-at-heel Count of Monte Cristo more than fifty years ago. The beige felt slippers were too big and didn’t even match each other. ‘Messieurs …?’ began the man doubtfully – at least that’s what he must have said but no one heard him.

  His chubby cheeks were pale, the dome of his head bald, the ears rather small behind sidewhiskers and under the monk’s tonsure.

  Schultz gunned the engine hard, then switched off but left the lights on. The other lorry followed suit. Silence now intruded, joining the incessant hammering of the rain.

  ‘He’s getting wet,’ offered Kohler.

  ‘So what?’ snorted Schultz.

  ‘You’re the Gestapo,’ murmured Baumann. ‘You do the honours, Herr Kohler. Tell him we’re tourists and haven’t got a lot of time. Tell him we’re sorry to have interrupted his sleep but that death waits for no one and he should have been up and at work anyway.’

  ‘The Préfet’s car isn’t here, Otto,’ hazarded Schultz.

  It wasn’t. ‘Give me back my guns,’ breathed Kohler. ‘I don’t feel right without them.’ Verdammt, what was he to do?

  ‘And here we thought the Gestapo invincible and equal to every situation?’ quipped Baumann drily.

  ‘Piss off.’

  The muzzle of the Luger jabbed him in the ribs. ‘Give him Schultz’s present. Maybe that will loosen his tongue.’

  With the string bag of skulls dangling from his left hand, the Gestapo’s detective walked into the lights to stand in the rain and throw his shadow over the hotel.

  A big man, he was formidable.

  ‘Listen, those boys mean business. Is there anyone in the tumulus?’

  ‘The tumulus …? But … but it is closed for the season, monsieur? The hours, they are from …’

  ‘Kohler, Gestapo Paris Central. Just answer the question.’

  There were at least six skulls in the bag and as the Gestapo raised it higher, they, too, threw their shadow on the wall.

  ‘Préfet Kerjean was here earlier but … Monsieur Charbonneau, he was not in the tumulus and the Préfet, he … he has told me to lock the door and let no one in.’

  That was fair enough and what a good cop would have done. ‘Where was he headed when he left you?’

  ‘To Vannes … to his house. Monsieur, has anything happened to Monsieur Charbonneau? The Préfet, he has searched the tumulus most thoroughly in spite of my telling him the door was locked all day and Monsieur Charbonneau could not, after his last visit, have left the side entrance open for himself as he sometimes does. The Préfet, please, he has not said why he … he was looking for the pianist.’

  ‘Someone wants him for a concert at the Santé.’

  ‘The Santé …?’ Paris’s largest and most crowded prison.

  The others must have got down from the lorries, for the man drew in a ragged breath and could not take his eyes from them. ‘So many,’ he stammered.

  ‘It’s just a party. Give me the key and whatever candles you have. Here, hold this and I’ll pay you up front. That way you won’t have to worry.’

  5,000 francs changed hands from a bundle the Gestapo dragged out. ‘It … it is too much,’ stammered the man. ‘I have no change.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s my treat. Look on it as a tip and if my partner arrives, tell him I’m in there. Tell him to do something and to go about it carefully.’

  The crew approached and soon they too threw their shadows on the hotel. Quickly the owner crossed himself and, thrusting back the bag of skulls, disappeared into the house for the key.

  The damned thing must weigh a good two kilos, thought Kohler. ‘Exactly what kind of a door is it?’ he asked doubtfully.

  ‘An old one. A big one.’

  Behind, and to one side of the hotel, a long, vine-covered pergola that might have been deemed quaint in pre-war days, led to the door whose great iron studs and hammered surface looked not only medieval but impregnable. The vines had lost their leaves and simply got in the way. The lock was stiff, the door took two of them to budge it and another to swing it aside.

  Christ! The burrow behind it was lined with upright stones too heavy for fewer than eight or ten strong young men to have heaved into place. It was roofed by the same.

  Grey and grey-green, the tightly fitted stones revealed signs of mitring which made one marvel at the skill of its builders. The stones were cold and damp and mossy and when he let a hand trail respectfully down the surface of one of them, Kohler swallowed hard. He’d have to duck. There was little enough room. His shoulders were wide. The floor was paved with blocks, or was it gravel? Dry in any case and all but level. Perhaps he could find some gentle rise, perhaps he could …

  ‘You first,’ said Baumann. ‘Here, give me the key. Death’s-head will keep it.’

  Were they going to lock him in? wondered Kohler. ‘The Préfet isn’t here and neither is the pianist.’

  ‘We’ll see, since there are two entrances. If not, we’ll have a trial of our own without them. Just you and ourselves. You’ll tell us what we want to know and we won’t tell you anything.’

  ‘Then give me a light. My eyes aren’t so good when it’s pitch dark.’

  ‘Quit stalling. The passage goes in to the centre of the tumulus. Graves open off it but are sunk a little into the floor. There is also a cross-cutting passage to the left and then, a little later on, one to the right which leads to the side entrance. The passage we are in makes a circuit in the centre with communal rooms opening off it, and it is in these rooms that there are several cremation pits.’

  ‘You’ve been here before.’

  ‘When one leaves the sea, what else is there to do?’

  The Blechkoller of U-boatmen, that tin-can claustrophobic neurosis, was foreign to most of them or perhaps they
were simply used to it and bolstered one another. Every once in a while the long line of men, stooped and otherwise, would stop to listen hard or laugh and make jokes until silenced by the others. In the damp and musty hush that followed these outbursts, the wind would whisper and sigh as it sought the ancient passages or found some hidden fissure it just had to explore.

  Were its sounds parts of the pianist’s symphony? he wondered. The entrance passage did, indeed, pass portals that led to cremation pits in rooms across whose walls and floors the torch beams erratically fled.

  One long passage did lead to the west – Baumann shone his torch along it. The stones were grey and silent and forbidding. The floor, trod by ancient feet from across the millennia, brought with the thought of them, the sound of stone hammers cracking the charred bones of their brethren to burn them better and free the greasy marrow.

  The smoke would have been thick and pungent with the stench of burning flesh. It would have crept along the roofs of the tunnels or hung there for days. Soot was everywhere above him, now that he looked for it. All too soon, though, the fears and superstitions of the crew got the better of them and they searched in silence, conferred seldom and then but softly, ghosts of another time and with candles instead of flaming torches or stone lamps.

  A little farther in, another long passage went east into that same pitch-dark and uncertain void. But had both of these lateral passages once broken out at their far ends so that the rays of the rising and setting sun would have been seen directly but only at one precise time of year? The tumulus must be huge.

  At a distant shout from one of the men, they discovered that the other entrance door was locked, but for how long had that been?

  ‘We’ll wait here,’ said Baumann softly. ‘We’ll know soon enough if there’s anyone else.’ Anyone but the spirits of the dead, thought Kohler, the spirits of men, women and children who had once lived and worked and played and fashioned tools of flint and then of copper and had dragged their dead in here.