Butcher and Bolt

by Will Belford

  ‘Then what do you suggest we do, just shoot him down in the street?’ asked Joe. ‘How can we expect to get away with that?’

  ‘I have something in mind,’ said Bernard, ‘but tell me something, does this man Richter know what either of you look like?’

  ‘Oui,’ said Yvette, ‘he most certainly knows my face, and he has seen Joe in circumstances he’s unlikely to forget.’

  ‘Unfortunate,’ said Bernard, ‘but perhaps we can turn it to our advantage. Tell me Raquel,’ he said, with a stern emphasis on her new name, ‘on what terms did you part with this German pig?’

  ‘He left in a hurry from the hotel room. As far as he was concerned it was simply the last time he would see me, and I was just another French whore in his eyes.’

  ‘So if you were suddenly to materialise here in Paris, what would he think?’

  ‘Depends on how we present it I imagine,’ she said with a shrug, ‘he’d certainly be surprised, but if I told him that I’d come looking for him because I couldn’t live without him he might be arrogant enough to believe it. I expect he’d either tell me to go home immediately, or use me for a few nights then tell me he was being posted elsewhere to get rid of me.’

  ‘Hmmm, yes,’ said Bernard, ‘you are an old conquest from another part of France and he will have moved on in his own mind and be looking for fresh meat.’

  ‘Bloody hell you two,’ said Joe, standing up abruptly, ‘do you have to be so damned cold-blooded about it? Christ, I need another drink.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Bernard, ‘excuse my poor manners, here, have some more burgundy.’

  ‘I’d sooner have a cold beer,’ muttered Joe mutinously, but he accepted the glass of vin rouge and downed it. Bernard refilled it and searched his face.

  ‘You are a young man of strong passions I see. You would make a good subject for one of my paintings,’ he said, gesturing at the canvasses on the walls, ‘as would you mademoiselle,’ he said, bowing to Yvette.

  ‘Spare me your idle flattery m’sieur,’ she replied with a dismissive wave, ‘and tell me how you think we can kill this man.’

  ‘Kidnap,’ interjected Joe.

  ‘Kill I said!’ she replied with a venomous look that made Joe sit back in his chair.

  ‘Such impetuosity,’ sighed Bernard, pouring himself more wine, ‘it’s a simple plan but it requires help from a certain person.’

  Yvette leant forward with interest.

  ‘What person?’

  ‘L’Hydre,’ said Bernard.

  ‘The Hydra? Is that fair dinkum?’ said Joe.

  ‘No one knows his real name,’ replied Bernard, ‘but he is a man with fingers in many pockets, not least those of the Germans and the French police,’ said Bernard. ‘He has many cronies and henchmen working for him and if anyone can help you get your man, it is him. But he is dangerous, and remember, he is collaborating with the Germans, so he could just as easily betray you to them.’

  ‘How can we meet him?’ asked Joe keenly. A dangerous collaborator was what he had expected to find here; he wanted to know how he could use him to complete his mission. A small voice in the back of his mind told him he was being ridiculous, obsessive, single-minded, obstinate, stupid even, but he suppressed it. To lose focus now, so far into this thing, would be fatal. He had to maintain some self-belief. His father had told him many times that when things got difficult, that was when you discovered who the true heroes were. And Joe wanted to be a hero, wanted desperately to be a hero, like his father had been to him.

  ‘First you must know what it is you want from him and you must have something to offer in exchange,’ said Bernard, ‘what can you possibly have that a man like this might want eh, Lieutenant Dean?’

  ‘Let’s ask him that shall we?’ said Joe.

  Bernard sighed at the bloody-minded arrogance of this brash young Australian. How could he be so cocky?

  ‘Whatever his price we can find a way to pay it,’ said Yvette, ‘let’s go and see him now.’

  ‘My dear, this is not the sort of man you just go and see at your leisure,’ said Bernard, ‘you need to make an appointment. This man has people killed for the slightest provocation,’ said Bernard, ‘men, women, French, German,’ he paused for effect, ‘probably Australian. Are you certain you want to meet him?’

  ‘Seems we don’t have much bloody choice do we?’ said Joe.

  ‘We’ve got this far,’ said Yvette, ‘we can’t walk away now.’

  ‘In that case, we need to ask for an appointment,’ said Bernard. ‘I will see to it, but obviously we cannot act tonight after all. I suggest you two finish this bottle and go to sleep. If this whole thing isn’t over in the next two days we will all end up in front of a firing squad. I need you to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Now, excuse me, but I must leave you for now. If I am not here in the morning, do not under any circumstances leave the apartment, is that clear? There is plenty of food.’

  Indeed there was. Bernard’s pantry was well-stocked. He even had an icebox full of fresh meat and, unbelievably, ice. Yvette wondered how he came by this largesse, but she knew better than to ask.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The afternoon sun was throwing long shadows across the boulevards by the time they arrived at the nightclub. Bernard had gone separately, while Joe and Yvette posed once more as a couple and walked arm-in-arm across the Seine and north until they entered the seedier part of town around Place Pigalle. The walk from Bernard’s studio on the Rue Monge had taken them straight across the Isle de la Cité, past German soldiers on leave posing for photos in front of Notre Dame. The direct route would have been straight up Rue Montmartre, but Yvette steered Joe left along the green river past the Louvre and into the Tuileries.

  If it hadn’t been for the occasional German uniform, they could have been on holiday. Certainly they looked like any other young Parisian couple, although there were few other couples around. At the Place de la Concord they stopped and admired the obelisk before starting up Rue Royale.

  ‘This would have been quicker on the underground,’ muttered Joe, as the third German patrol passed them.

  ‘Oui, but then you would not have seen anything of Paris,’ said Yvette, ‘and you are much more likely to be asked for papers going in and out of a station than out here on the street.’

  Suddenly Joe stiffened beside her and steered her abruptly into a bookshop they were passing.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Yvette, disentangling her arm from his grip.

  ‘I just saw Richter,’ hissed Joe, ‘he came out of that building on the corner of the next block.’

  ‘Then we should follow him,’ said Yvette, walking straight out the door.

  Joe cursed for a moment, then realised the shop owner was looking enquiringly at him.

  ‘Women eh?’ said Joe, shrugging his shoulders.

  The shopkeeper rolled his eyes and went back to reading his newspaper.

  Joe caught up with her twenty metres down the street.

  ‘You do understand that he knows our faces don’t you?’ he asked fiercely, ‘what if he sees us?’

  ‘He knows a lot more than my face,’ said Yvette, ‘but we do not look the same as we did before, I’m blonde for one thing. He will not recognise us and he won’t be expecting to see us here anyway. He’s probably forgotten all about me by now anyway. There he is, walking with that fat man.’

  The fat man was clearly a senior officer. He was wearing a black SS uniform and gesticulating occasionally with an ivory cane. Joe considered their disguises: he had four days’ worth of dark beard, a grey suit, horn-rimmed glasses and a beret, and looked like an unusually well-fed poet or philosopher; she was wearing a tailored black dress and patent leather heels, and with her blonde hair looked nothing like the serving girl Richter had bedded in the Hotel de la Plage in Wissant a few weeks before.

  They were now approaching Boulevard Haussman and it was clear that they would all come
to a halt at the edge of the pavement together. Standing just feet away from the two German officers, Joe could see the individual hairs on the back of Richter’s neck. He held his breath as he listened to their conversation, the tension thrumming in his spine like an over-tightened guitar string.

  ‘So, you have your men ready?’ asked the senior officer.

  ‘Ja herr Obersturmbannfuhrer,’ said Richter punctiliously, ‘all I need is the list of addresses and we will make Paris Judenrein within a few weeks.’

  ‘A few weeks Hauptsturmfuhrer? Such zeal!’ mocked the colonel, ‘you will receive your orders tomorrow morning. Have you co-ordinated everything with the train schedulers?’

  A convoy of six army trucks roared past in the street and Joe missed some of Richter’s reply.

  ‘…and there are one or two minor details yet to be confirmed, such as the availability of rolling stock, but they assure me they can provide two-dozen cattle cars and a locomotive, albeit an old French one, solely for this purpose. It would have been more efficient to have two, but we have nearly finished wiring the perimeter of the temporary camp so we have capacity.’

  ‘Gut, and where is the camp?’ asked the colonel.

  ‘On the outskirts of Paris, near the shunting yards for the eastern train line at Chelles. We expect to have a regular service running from there to Dachau three days from now.’

  ‘Good work Hauptsturmfuhrer, I can assure you that your work will be acknowledged at the highest possible level. Germany needs more men like you, men who are prepared to do whatever is necessary to further the Reich. Carry this out well and you will soon make Sturmbannfuhrer.’

  The light changed, and the two men strode across the boulevard. Joe held Yvette’s arm for a moment then followed.

  Halfway across the street Richter stopped, said something to the officer and turned abruptly in his tracks. Joe almost bumped into him and the German snarled and pushed him aside with a curse.

  They carried on up Rue d’Amsterdam, hearts thumping.

  ‘What are they planning?’ asked Yvette.

  ‘Sounds like Richter’s been given the job of rounding up the Jews of Paris,’ said Joe, ‘just one more reason to get him out of here as quickly as possible.’

  Yvette grasped his arm and looked imploringly into his eyes.

  ‘Can we not just kill him and have done with it Joe?’ she asked, ‘why do you insist on this ridiculous idea of taking him to England? A knife in the back and this will all be over.’

  ‘Will it?’ said Joe, ‘whether we kill him or I take him back to England makes no difference, they’ll replace him with some other murdering bastard, but if I can get him there, at least we can interrogate him. A lot of people, the Americans in particular I’m told, don’t really believe that the Germans are rounding up Jews en masse into concentration camps, even though it’s been going on for years. My superiors want someone they can hold up as proof, not just another dead body.’

  Yvette sighed with frustration. They had reached Place Pigalle.

  ‘Very well then, let us find out what l’Hydre can do for us. Here is the place,’ she said, pointing at an imposing stone building on the other side of the street.

  ‘La Fleur?’ said Joe, ‘so much for innocence.’

  ‘Bernard tells me that that it’s run by the same woman who ran the British officers’ brothel in Roubaix before the Germans invaded,’ said Yvette, ‘surely you remember? You spent a whole night ‘talking’ to her, according to you, so you should remember her well. Her name is Sophie Legrand.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Joe did remember Sophie Legrand, but she didn’t remember him, not immediately anyway. For a brothel Madam there was no benefit in recalling the names and faces of British officers who had been in France in September 1940, no-one expected ever to see them again. With the whole of northern France under German occupation, the rest emasculated into Vichy, and the Luftwaffe poised to deliver the final blow to England, the British army was a distant memory.

  Sophie Legrand had an excellent memory for the names of her German clients though, and she recognised Richter from Joe’s description almost immediately.

  They were in a second-floor office at the rear of the La Fleur nightclub. Their knock on the back door had been greeted by a huge man in a suit that was two sizes too small for him. Not that the suit was small, it was probably the largest size available, but the man inside it was enormous in every dimension. Broad shoulders, a barrel chest and bull neck, with hands so large they could crush a raw pumpkin without effort. His black hair came down to his shoulders and clearly hadn’t been washed in some time.

  He seemed to be expecting them and stood aside without a word so they could squeeze past. They were in a narrow corridor with a couple of doors on either side and a staircase that went up and down. The giant gestured at the upward stairs and grunted.

  Madame Legrand greeted them in an office that overlooked the alleyway where they had come in. She was seated behind a desk smoking a cigarette. On the desk a lamp with a green shade cast a sickly glow over the room, making a red apple that sat on the desk appear iridescent. Even though it was still daylight outside, she was dressed in a dark purple velvet dress and black gloves. Her hair was pinned up, her face made up with heavy pancake, rouge, eyeliner and mascara. As if to provide contrast, a man in a rumpled grey suit sat in an armchair next to the fireplace. He had a round head with thinning grey hair plastered to his scalp. Below a large brow, his face was decorated with rimless glasses and an immaculately-barbered salt-and-pepper moustache.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Madame Legrand. ‘Our mutual friend tells me you’re looking for a particular German, oui?’ she said, without introductions.

  ‘Yes, his name is Hauptsturmfuhrer Hans Richter,’ said Joe.

  ‘A Hauptsturmfuhrer you say?’ she interrupted, ‘that’s an SS rank isn’t it?’ she asked in an aside to the man in the grey suit.

  ‘Oui, roughly the equivalent of a major in the Wehrmacht,’ said the man in a rasping voice.

  ‘And what is your issue with this particular German?’ asked Madam Legrand.

  ‘He massacred a company of British soldiers during the campaign in France,’ said Joe.

  ‘And deported all the Jews from Roubaix to a concentration camp,’ added Yvette.

  ‘So what?’ said Legrand, ‘he is only one of many who have committed such crimes. There are a dozen or more of them in this club every night who we know to be torturers and murderers. They are Germans, it is to be expected. Why this man?’

  ‘He’s a known war criminal, I was ordered to bring him to England for questioning,’ said Joe, acutely aware of how ridiculous this sounded here in the centre of Paris, hundreds of miles from the English Channel.

  The man in the suit chuckled to himself and drew a cigar from his coat pocket.

  ‘Really?’ said Madame Legrand archly, raising an immaculately-sculpted eyebrow, ‘what ambitious missions you English invent. However did you hope to get him out of France?’

  ‘We were supposed to grab him from a hotel at Cap Gris Nez and put him on a boat,’ said Joe, ‘but the mission went to hell and he escaped.’

  ‘Yet you’ve managed to track him all the way here?’ said Legrand. ‘Impressive. I take it from this that you are not the type of people who give up easily. Shame really, I could see a bright future for you both in my establishment. You,’ she said pointing at Joe, ‘could do door security for me, and you,’ looking Yvette up and down, ‘would scrub up nicely on the stage and no doubt be popular in the rooms upstairs. You’re Jewish aren’t you? Worried about being taken by the Germans, hmm?’

  Joe stood up abruptly.

  ‘We didn’t come here to be insulted, we were told you could introduce us to someone who could help. Are you planning to do that or are we going to make small-talk all bloody day?’

  ‘Ooh, he has a temper this boy,’ said Madam Legrand, looking at the giant who was standing behi
nd them. ‘Be careful you don’t annoy Jean-Paul, he may not say much, but his hands are persuasive.’

  She tapped ash into an ashtray carved from a piece of jade and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  ‘You look vaguely familiar Mr…’

  ‘Dean,’ said Joe automatically.

  ‘Ah yes I remember you now, your mention of Roubaix has brought it back to me. You were that shrinking violet who refused the best of my girls because you were saving yourself. I presume you were saving yourself for her?’ she said, pointing at Yvette with the cigarette.

  ‘So it’s true?’ asked Yvette, looking at Joe, ‘you didn’t go with any of her whores?’

  ‘Do I detect trouble in paradise?’ purred the brothel Madam. She removed a knife from the desk drawer and began slicing the apple with neat strokes.

  Joe looked around the room impatiently. This wasn’t the time for discussions of long-past events.

  ‘Of course not,’ he snapped at Yvette, ‘as I bloody told you at the time. Now, are we going to meet this bloke or not?’

  ‘Normally I would expect some remuneration for an introduction of this kind,’ said Madam Legrand, ‘but Bernard has been so good to me in the way of little luxuries such as this,’ she bit into a slice of apple with a loud crunch, ‘that it would be churlish of me to protest. Besides, he will owe me a favour now. Wait here.’

  She rose and swept out of the room, leaving them with the giant and the small grey man.

  ‘Your French doesn’t sound like that usually spoken by Englishmen,’ said the man in the chair, speaking in English, ‘your accent is different.’

  ‘I’m Australian,’ said Joe, ‘my mother was French. What do you care? Who are you anyway?’

  ‘I make it my job always to know as much as possible about the people I work with,’ said the man.

  ‘So you’re l’Hydre?’ asked Yvette incredulously.

  The man rose from his chair and bowed formally to her before sitting again.

  ‘Not what you were expecting?’ he asked, staring at her inquisitively through the rimless glasses. Even his eyes were grey. It seemed to Yvette that for a moment they flickered with some internal amusement. Then it was as if a wall came down inside the man, and the eyes turned to granite.