‘Girls with specifics,’ said Giselle, giving Kohler the tremulous look of a young woman who was still not certain her lover really cared enough about her to obtain false travel papers for them.
‘Specific physical features,’ said Jean-Louis, gravely brushing both hands over the table, ‘that match the girl who was once engaged to the son of the house’s owner.’ He fingered a richly gilded announcement. ‘Le Château des belles fleurs bleues near Provins. A Mademoiselle Angèlique Desthieux, a mannequin.’
‘Ah no,’ gasped Giselle, clutching the base of her throat and feeling quite sick.
‘A mannequin …?’ managed Oona.
‘Engaged to Captain Gaetan Edouard Vergès, 13 April 1916.’
‘And then?’ asked Kohler, hearing the guns of that other war as if only yesterday, feeling the mud, the shit, the shells …
‘A drooler, Hermann.’
Giselle quivered and couldn’t look up but seemed only to shrink into herself. ‘The face …’ she managed. ‘The constant drooling as he paws your naked body and then fucks you. No lips, sometimes half a nose, no jaws … Nothing but noises, mes amis. Noises!’
‘Verdammt!’ Kohler grabbed her hand. ‘Did you …? Hey, petite, have you ever had to …? Well, you know.’
‘Me?’ She arched her lovely eyebrows at him, pleased that he should care so much but distressed also, for it was not any business of his! ‘No, Herr Haupsturmführer, one such as that has never slobbered over these breasts you hunger so much to suckle, nor has such a one ever fucked me. But …’ Ah! poor Hermann, he was so mortified and embarrassed … He must really love her a little. ‘But I have heard others talk of it, not at our house. Ah no, Madame Chabot would not allow it. But at other houses.’
‘Les baveux,’ said Oona, watching the two men closely and asking herself what she really felt about Hermann Kohler. Jealousy after all? Envy that Giselle, who had such a splendid young body and was so very beautiful, gave him such pleasure while she …
‘Madame Lemaire’s maid hasn’t told me everything,’ grumbled St-Cyr. ‘Is it that Nanette saw the drooler on or from the balcony of those houses, or is it that her mistress has so filled the poor girl’s head with stories of the war, the very sound of crying next door is enough to give her nightmares?’
‘The shrapnel, Louis. Clouds of it. The screams, the sounds of those who could no longer scream because their faces had been torn to shreds.’
St-Cyr turned to Giselle. ‘The shells exploded above our positions.’
‘And ours!’ swore Kohler, grabbing his own chin to show what had happened to his face. ‘Brilliant star-bursts and then …’
‘The dark grey snaking tongues of metal,’ sighed Louis.
‘Of pieces,’ said Oona, sadly fingering her cardigan, ‘some no bigger than the buttons of my blouse.’
Hermann had withdrawn his hand from Giselle. He had noticed her reaction and had felt a little something for her.
Again Jean-Louis spoke. ‘Angèlique Desthieux refused to marry Gaetan Vergès. She was shown his face by the doctors and couldn’t bring herself to carry through, but is it that he harbours such a hatred after all these years, he still seeks out only those with her eyes and hair?’
‘Yes!’ hissed Giselle with a harlot’s vindictiveness. ‘Those who wished to become like her.’
Kohler calmly ignored the outburst. ‘Vergès couldn’t have taken the photos, Louis. None of those girls would willingly have posed for him.’
It had to be said. ‘But did he employ the photographer and the woman? Did he wait upstairs in the attic and come down only at the last? Is that not where Madame Lemaire’s maid saw him and is this not what she’s too afraid to tell me?’
They were each silent at the thought. All around their little group the racket soared with laughter, much applause and foot-stamping both on the stage and beneath the tables.
St-Cyr drew in a breath. Still deep in thought, he said, ‘A cat wanders, a banker’s bank is robbed and right across the garden from his house, a young girl is brutally assaulted. Then … then three days after the robbery and the kidnapping, the house is emptied by four men from the firm of the Dallaire and Sons—why that firm, Hermann? And how, please, could that maid of Madame Lemaire’s have seen the name on those lorries when, at 6.07 in the evening, the street would already have been pitch dark and it’s against the law to show a light?’
‘Did she go outside to look?’ asked Giselle.
‘Perhaps but then … Ah, I must ask her,’ said St-Cyr ruefully. ‘I must ask her so many questions.’
Hermann found a few dregs in his stein and drained them before shoving it aside. ‘Chloroform, Louis. Why not ether?’
A square pad of cotton wool was dragged out and held with trembling fingers as Jean-Louis delved deeply into memory and more sadness came, thought Oona. The sadness of that other war, of things that could never be forgotten.
‘Ether,’ he said. ‘Is our Gaetan Vergès an ether-drinker?’
‘Ether, while used as an anaesthetic, can also be taken internally as a narcotic,’ said Hermann, looking steadily at his partner and friend, so much so, one knew absolutely he understood exacdy how Jean-Louis felt.
‘Ether to kill the pain of disfigurement,’ said Giselle earnesdy, ‘or to kill the loss of his lover. And why, please, the kidnapping now? Is it that only under the Occupation he feels secure enough that such horrible things can be done, or have they been going on before the war as well?’
The two men swiftly exchanged glances. Both knew they had best start for Provins immediately, yet should they not look closer first? wondered Oona. ‘That balcony,’ she said, and then, ‘Both chloroform and ether, they … they must be very difficult to obtain these days and would require special papers. Even then, I do not think such an addiction possible any more.’
Medicines of all kinds were exceedingly difficult to come by. Even aspirins were virtually impossible to buy and only one or two were doled out at a time, if available. ‘Boemelburg first, Hermann. We’ll have to have his clearance for this,’ said St-Cyr. ‘We can then take it from there.’
‘Yes, yes,’ grunted Kohler, ‘but the Chief isn’t going to like it, Louis. Ah Christ! why can’t things be easy for once?’
Unnoticed, the floor show had changed two or three times. Now the man with the rabbits in his hat was accusing his buxom assistant of hiding them upon her person and demanding that she search her top and briefs to hoots of laughter as they reappeared.
The tiny dressing-room backstage was beyond a crowded gaundet of all-but-naked chorus girls who, while waiting to go on stage, grinned lewdly at St-Cyr, wet painted lips, gave knowing looks or brushed teasing fingers down his arm or across a cheek, asking, ‘Hey, my fine Inspector, what’s she got that I haven’t?’ and pressing firm, plump breasts, with pasty-covered nipples against him. Old, young, not-so-young, all sizes, all shapes …‘Ah merde,’ he sighed. ‘Please, it’s no ordinary visit. A young girl is missing.’
‘Missing?’ teased one with flashing dark hazel eyes and huge lashes. ‘What is missing is that you are the only one with clothes!’
There were pink dots on her throat and breasts … Measles? he wondered apprehensively. Sequins! ‘Please, another time.’
‘All of us?’ asked one. They were laughing now and whispering to each other.
‘Oh, let him go,’ said another.
‘She’s waiting, Inspector!’ hissed another lewdly. ‘But for what, mes enfants? The shag? The release of his little burden?’
‘And hers!’ laughed another. ‘But it will never happen, ah no. Not with them. He’s always too busy; she also, and too beautiful, too sophisticated, too …’
Self-consciously he hurried past them, brushing talcum powder from his jacket and wiping lipstick, face cream and rouge from his cheeks.
‘Gabrielle …’ He burst into the cubbyhole she called her own. The door closed behind him and he drew in the scent of her perfume.
‘Jean-Louis …’
&n
bsp; There were only two chairs and she was sitting in one of them with her feet up on the other. She reached out to him and he took her hand in his and, suddenly at a loss for words, stumbled over an apology for not having spent Christmas with her and her son at her Château on the Loire as planned. ‘Lyon and a case of arson,’ he said. ‘A tragedy,’ only to leave it off and shrug, ‘With you there is no need to apologize. How is René Yvonne-Paul?’
‘Fine and still wanting to spend time with you but understanding that, like his mother, he must share you with your work just as he must share me with mine.’
‘My work … ah yes. May I?’ he asked, indicating the other chair.
Must there always be this stiffness between them at first? she wondered, but when he sat opposite her, their knees touched and he took both her hands in his.
She squeezed his hands hard and tossing her head in warning, said urgently, ‘Kiss me. I want to be loved, mon cher. Loved!’
Merde alors! what was this? Releasing her hands, he cautiously stood and looked slowly around the cramped room, searching always …
There were two tiny microphones—one behind the dressing-table mirror, on the left up high, the other hidden above the ceiling light.
‘A cigarette,’ he said, easing himself into the chair to sit looking at her, worried, ah so very worried.
She moved a piece of paper across her dressing-table and watched as he wrote, What has caused the Gestapo to be interested in you?
She shrugged and smiled sadly, then shook her head to indicate she didn’t know.
Have your contacts in the Resistance any word on the robbery at the Crédit Lyonnais? he wrote and saw her shake her head, and when they held each other tightly and he drew in the scent of Mirage, of vetiverol and bergamot, angelica and lavender, she whispered, ‘So far there’s been nothing, but the few I work with don’t think it was a Resistance job.’
None of the microphones could be touched. Another was located with difficulty in the wall behind the fire extinguisher in a corner. She was Russian. She used an assumed name, had escaped during the Revolution and had later married a Frenchman who had been killed in this war.
One could not question her activities or tell her the danger was too great and that, if it came to the worst, it would be hard for Hermann to turn a blind eye and for himself to help without perhaps first killing his partner.
She understood the risks, he understood her need to be involved. As they sat facing each other, he quietly told her about Joanne—the Gestapo would know of the girl by now. ‘She’s like a daughter I’ve watched over,’ he said. ‘I must find her before it’s too late.’
Instinctively a hand touched his cheek and she let her fingers trace down to his moustache to press themselves against his lips. He wasn’t like the wealthy businessmen or politicians, the generals and other high-ranking officers who took her to dinner, bought champagne, sent flowers and asked her to parties and endless official receptions. He was shabby, somewhat diffident, rough-and-ready, a cop—they had met on another case … Ah, how should she say it? He knew himself absolutely and didn’t try to be anyone else. Yes, he was not like so many other men. She felt good with him, good all over. Secure, at ease, at home, so many things. What more did one need?
Chantal and Muriel, he wrote. I must take the photographs to them. What photographs? she wondered and saw him write, Mannequins … clothing …the manner in which the photos were taken, the sequence, Gabrielle.
And then … Leave word for me with them if possible. Always a warning if you’re in trouble, eh? Simply a Yes if the Resistance knocked off that bank, or a No. We must find out so as to eliminate the possibility or include it.
He struck a match and burned the slip of paper. He destroyed the ashes by rubbing them in his palms and then blowing them towards the door. They held each other. They wondered when they would see each other again. His moustache tickled when he kissed her ear—never on the lips, not with him. Her voice, the influenza season … he was too conscious of her well-being, a worrier.
Without a word he left her and for a time she was alone. Chantal and Muriel had a shop on place Vendôme. They were old friends and knew the fashion business like few others. He would go to them for information and advice as he always did when necessary. She would leave something there for him if she could.
Poor Jean-Louis, she said silently. He is a cop whose partner, though now a friend of mine too, is of the Gestapo. That alone will tear him apart every time he thinks of me.
Lighting a cigarette, she sought out each of the Gestapo’s bugs and counted them again before worrying about their interest in her and if there were any she hadn’t found.
3
IN THE MORNING, BOEMELBURG WAS WAITING FOR them. They had only just parked the Citroën in the courtyard off the rue des Saussaies, when an orderly approached and gave them the order.
‘He isn’t happy.’
‘Is he ever?’ snorted Kohler, hung over and taking a last drag before carefully stubbing out his cigarette and hiding the damp remains in his little tin. A real Kippensammler par excellence. The things one did these days to keep nourishment at hand.
Butt-collecting had become a national pastime, a preoccupation shared by those of their German masters who had fallen from grace and were without a regular supply.
‘Pharand is to be bypassed. Go straight to the Chief,’ said the orderly.
Pharand was Louis’s boss, a file-minded, territorial little French fascist who was insidiously jealous of his turf and believed firmly in the system of wealthy friends who had put him at the top.
‘Our luck,’ snorted Louis. ‘Maybe I’ll keep my job, Hermann, and maybe I won’t.’
It was always the roll of the dice of whim these days. Pharand had lost his cushy office to Boemelburg who had moved in on the day of the Defeat and had kicked him out and down the hall, so that when the little twerp had found the guts to come back to Paris, he had found there had been a few changes.
Humiliated by the loss of status, Major Osias Pharand had elected to make up for it in other ways.
‘Don’t worry about it, Louis. I’ll protect you.’
‘Grâce à Dieu, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of!’
They went into an office that was spacious and once filled with Chinese porcelains, Japanese prints, ivory fans, chopsticks—little mementoes of colonial days years and years ago. Other things too, of course.
But now all chucked out in favour of the utilitarian. Maps detailed every nook and cranny of France with pins and flags. Telexes hammered. Telephones waited. From the office next door came the machine-gun sounds of four secretaries typing reports already at 0700 hours Berlin time, 0600 hours the old time, 0500 hours in summer, Christ!
As Head of SIPO-SD Section IV, the Gestapo in France, Boemelburg had the power of life and death over every living soul in the country. A giant, like Hermann, but well over sixty years of age and with an all-but-shaven grey bullet of a head, sagging jowls and puffy sad blue eyes, France’s top cop had been a detective for much of his life, but had included some years in Paris as a salesman of heating and ventilating systems. He spoke excellent French, even to the slang of the quartiers and, what was far more important, could think like the French when needed.
Depending on his mood, however, it could either be French or deutsch. This time he chose the former. One never quite knew with him, and of course, to have known and worked with him before the war on the IKPK, the International Organization of Police, had been more of a detriment than an asset. Boemelburg had known only too well the capabilities of God’s little detective and had put him to work but had given him Hermann as a watchdog.
The voice was gruff. ‘So, Louis, a matter of eighteen million and the disappearance of a neighbour?’
Turcotte in Records must have filled him in.
‘Walter …’, began St-Cyr.
The lifeless eyes grew cold. The frame, big and big-boned, with flesh hanging under a dishevelled grey suit, straighten
ed ponderously.
‘Herr Sturmbannführer,’ said the Sûreté’s little mouse, ‘we’re not certain yet if there is a connection between the disappearance and the robbery.’
‘Then make certain of it. Otherwise you’ll devote yourselves entirely to the robbery.’
‘And the préfet?’ blurted the mouse.
‘You leave Talbotte to me, Louis. Kohler, how was the fucking last night? Did you bang the both of them? How dare you tread on such thin ice? A whore and a Dutch alien?’
‘I … I fell asleep before … Well, you know,’ shrugged Kohler, managing to look foolish. ‘They were both disappointed.’
‘Then perhaps we have your undivided attention after all.’
Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, was it a warning of things to come? wondered St-Cyr. An old and much trusted friend of Gestapo Mueller in Berlin, it fell to Walter to send them on their way when need arose which was always these days. Alas, and with no extra pay, not even a mention of it. Just the blitzkrieg because that was the way the Germans wanted things done.
Boemelburg indicated a side table and said, ‘Kohler, go out to that car of Louis’s and bring us a selection of your fourteen victims. Don’t waste time. Use it!’
He waited for the Gestapo’s Bavarian sore thumb to leave, then said, ‘Louis, this business mustn’t be taken too close to the heart. There’s a war on and I have my priorities. Though Talbotte says he’s convinced there isn’t a terrorist connection to the robbery, I want the matter fully cleared.’
Is that understood? One could read this in the Sturmbannführer’s gaze.
‘Certainly, Walter.’
‘Can I count on you?’
Ah merde! ‘Yes. If …’
‘If I let you work on the girl, eh? Is it to be a bargain with the Devil, Jean-Louis? You, a patriot who must betray his own kind or find himself elsewhere?’
There could be no backing away from it this time. If there was a Resistance connection, he would have to be told. It was either that or forget about Joanne …
‘There can’t be any in-betweens, Louis. Either you’re one of us or you’ll be kept on elsewhere only until such time as your usefulness ceases.’
Mannequin Page 7
