Spook's Gold

by Andrew Wood

  Hoffman paused and sat calmly, as if finished with his narrative, leaving Marner to have to ask for the second factor. The reason for Hoffman’s ploy became clear. “The second is that the receipt on landfall and the overland shipping was managed by the Gestapo. Therefore, in their wisdom, the Chancellery have handed the matter over to Kriegsmarine rather than RHSA to investigate.”

  Marner filed the Gestapo link away in his mind for the moment. “But the switch may well have been executed further back in the chain, in Japan presumably if that’s where the gold originates from. We don’t have any absolute proof that the thefts took place whilst in German hands.”

  “You may well be correct,” conceded Hoffman. “But you should also note that there are also shipments arriving on Japanese submarines.”

  “Japanese?”

  “Yes, their submarines have been visiting our ports on the French coast since 1942. They call them ‘Yanagi’ missions; apparently Yanagi translates as ‘Willow’, but goodness only knows how that relates to the military objective.” Hoffman flapped his hand at the absurdity, paused and took some moments to bring his mind back to the subject he had strayed from. “But the objective is simple. Exchange of personnel and technology, trade of goods and so forth. My point being, none of the gold delivered by the Japanese subs has been switched.”

  “So we are back to German submarines,” finished Marner. “Noting that if the gold carried by Japanese submarines was also handled by the Gestapo but not tampered with, then the Kriegsmarine is logically the common factor!”

  “This brings us full circle to your question regarding what Schull was doing here in Paris. If the missing bullion was the reason for his murder, then presumably he was reasonably close to whoever is responsible.”

  “Where had Schull been before Paris?”

  “He came here directly from Berlin because he was following the trail backwards. He didn’t get very far!” concluded Hoffman.

  Marner dipped his head in feigned acknowledgement of this attempt at humour. “But why Paris? Was the gold routed through here?”

  “I really don’t know. You will have to ask your own SS colleagues about that. I was simply instructed by my superiors in Berlin to extend to Schull the authority to do what he needed and to go where he wanted. Just to contact me if he met any, ahh, obstacles. But since my initial meeting with Schull last week when he arrived, I had not seen nor heard of him until his death was reported to me.”

  Marner learned that Schull had been offered a desk to use in the building, but Hoffman did not even know where that was, having delegated the minor organisational details to his aide. Directed to Schull’s assigned desk in the corner of a chaotic office shared by numerous other officers, it took Marner twenty seconds to establish that there was nothing on it or in the drawers that had any link to Schull. So his next course of action was to go to the only other place in the city that Schull was connected to: his hotel.

  Chapter Five

  The Hotel Dauphin was a scruffy low grade affair in the Rue de l’Isly, close to the Gare Saint-Lazare. It would have seen better days in peacetime, benefiting from its proximity to the station. Now, with few commercial or tourist travellers and being just that bit too far out of the sphere of central Paris activity to make it attractive to German officers as a permanent residence, it made only minimal trade from those passing through on temporary assignments. Such as Schull.

  At the reception desk Marner encountered a tired and elderly woman who was more interested in reading her week-old newspaper than in his demand for the key to Schull’s room, although how she could see the paper through the toxic haze of cigarette smoke that enveloped her was a mystery to him. He offered no explanation for why he required the key, citing simply ‘official business’. She grunted, shrugged and clattered the key onto the scarred wooden counter rather than into his outstretched palm and then returned to her paper.

  Stepping into the elevator and closing the gate, he pushed the button for the fifth floor but it did not move. After several stabs at the button and opening and re-closing the gate to verify that it was shut, he returned to the desk to be informed that it was out of order due to lack of spare parts. So he was left with no option but to ascend via the reeking and unlit stairwell to the top level.

  As he walked along the gloomy corridor he became aware that his boots were sticking slightly to the threadbare carpet covering the creaking and uneven floorboards. The mystery was solved when he looked up and spotted the water stains on the ceiling; the roof leaked badly, which would also explain the warped floorboards. Must be very interesting in the wet winter months, he mused.

  Schull’s room was distinctly below average; small and basic with just the bare essentials of a bed, a table scarred with cigarette burns, one hard wooden chair and a wardrobe that had a couple of drawers below the squeaking doors. A tiny private bathroom held a stained enamel toilet plate of the type that one placed one’s feet on the raised sides and squatted over. There was also a small bathtub with taps that were possibly non-functional based upon the amount of scale encrusted on them, although one of them had a drip that would keep anyone awake at night. The small grime-streaked window looked out onto the roof of the hotel kitchen below at the back of the hotel.

  Presumably Schull had not been prepared to spend the extra few francs out of his own pocket for an upgrade, or did not understand the system. All senior German officers on assignment, either long term or short, were allotted their hotel accommodation. The price rate was determined by the command HQ in overall charge of the garrison in the city or town, a rate that was inevitably well below that which the hotel would have charged in peacetime. Hotel owners and management had no choice but to accept; the alternative was to find themselves without any custom at all from the German military, in the virtual absence of any civilian trade. Complaints regarding the pittance that they were being paid were ineffectual, and at least it gave them some cash flow to remain open and operational.

  All of the better class hotels in the city had been taken over by officers based there long-term. Unlike many officers who used fear, bullying or a supplement from their salary on hotel managers to improve their standard, Marner had to admit that his permanent room at the Hotel Aurore in the 16th arrondissement was comfortable. Those officers new to the city or visiting on short term assignments were inevitably left with the remaining lower class hotels that had not been claimed, the Hotel Dauphin being a prime example.

  The fact that Schull’s coat and spare shirts and clothes were scattered on the bed, the open suitcase on the floor and the wardrobe doors and drawers left open indicated one of two things: either Schull was chronically untidy, or someone had performed a quick search of the room with no care or concern that the search was noticeable. But then, dead men do not complain that their room has been ransacked.

  After telephoning the reception to summon the manager, Marner used the time spent waiting to effect his own search of the room. There was no business case, just the empty suitcase and nothing of any relevance in the pockets of the clothes. He checked the few places that Schull might have hidden anything of value but this also came up blank. Marner was examining the lock on the door – no evidence of damage or tampering – when the wheezing manager arrived. Forced to listen patiently whilst the man, between gasps for air, haltingly introduced himself as Monsieur Pichon and explained that he suffered from asthma and flailed his arm wanly back along the corridor, Marner guessed that Pichon was less happy with the out of service elevator than his guests were.

  When Pichon was finally in a fit state to respond to his questions, Marner explained that the officer Schull who had taken this room was dead and that an investigation had been started. Pichon was genuinely surprised to hear of the death, but could offer Marner no information in return. Pichon stated that he had not personally seen or met Schull, that there had been no unusual activity or people in the hotel since Schull’s arrival. The hotel had no security manager, the personnel numbering just
Pichon and his wife, plus a couple of local ladies who cleaned and made up the rooms.

  That Pichon had not met Schull struck Marner as implausible. This hotel would not attract many German officers and Marner doubted that any manager would have passed up the opportunity to tap Schull for extra money in return for an improved grade room or food, or for extra ‘services’ such as prostitutes and alcohol. These were the primary ways that hotels supplemented the paltry amount that they could legitimately charge.

  Marner switched to the offensive. “Okay then, find your wife, you are both coming with me to Avenue Foch.”

  The mention of the infamous address sparked immediate panic from Pichon, whose eyes bulged in alarm, and sent him into another fit of wheezing and gasping, clinging to the door frame for support. “But.... but why?! I ... I ... have nothing to tell you about this .... we ... I ...”

  “A high ranking German officer has been murdered!” cut in Marner, moving to put his face up close to Pichon’s, whose eyes again flared in fear. “An officer whose hotel room, yes! – in your hotel Monsieur, whose room has been entered and searched.” He gestured to the disarray of the room with his arm, but Pichon’s eyes remained locked on Marner’s face. “Presumably by those persons responsible for his murder. There is a single key to the room, which hangs in your hotel reception and the door has not been forced. I therefore know that at least one crime has been committed here and I conclude that it was probably with the knowledge or even assistance of someone who works here.”

  Pausing to let his words sink in, Marner dropped his voice to a more menacing tone, “So we are going to Foch and my colleagues there will help you to decide whether or not you really know anything,” and then he strode past the cringing Pichon and away down the corridor.

  He barely heard the “Wait!” exhaled by the gasping Pichon. Whilst he had no love for the majority of the Gestapo organisation and its objectives and activities, the assumed membership of it together with the instant recognition and fear that the SS flashes on his uniform engendered was immensely persuasive and valuable in pursuit of what he considered to be his real task – true police work.

  Pichon motioned Marner to follow him back into Schull’s room and he closed the door, dropping his voice to a whisper that had nothing to do with his breathing difficulties; Pichon of all people knew how thin the walls of his establishment were. Still wheezing and spluttering, but now focussed and motivated by his fear of Marner, Pichon recounted that they had come to the hotel the previous afternoon, had forced him to hand over the key and to go and make himself absent for ten minutes.

  “‘They’? Who do you mean?” demanded Marner.

  Pichon’s face contorted with anguish, wrenched between his fear of Marner and a visit to the dreaded building on Avenue Foch, and ‘them’.

  “God-damn...” barked Marner advancing again in the face of Pichon, who buckled and blurted, “Them! La Carlingue!”

  ----

  Leaving the building ten minutes later, Marner reflected on this strange twist, the possible involvement of the Carlingue. This was the name of an organisation of French nationals who had been set up as auxiliaries to the Gestapo. They used and abused the freedom derived from their sanctioned pursuit of Jews and others sought by Department IV as a front to pursue their own enrichment and criminal activities. Many Jews whom they rounded up and subsequently turned over to the Gestapo had already been tortured to give up their wealth and riches. It was an open secret that their Gestapo handlers were taking a cut, but also assumed that many of the Carlingue’s victims did not survive the torture, or were simply killed in order to hide the true amount that these self-serving opportunists were really raking in.

  Formed from a diverse group of individuals, led by Pierre Bonny and Henri Lafont, the sole common denominator in their membership was their criminal histories. Bonny had been a senior police officer who had been sacked due to charges of corruption. Lafont was an overt career criminal who had been in and escaped from prison at least once. He was being hunted by the police at the time of the fall of France and had immediately ingratiated himself into the protection of the occupying Gestapo by spying for them. He was permitted to recruit and form the Carlingue and thus established as the formal head of this auxiliary to the Gestapo, even becoming a naturalised German in 1943, followed by formal appointment to the rank of SS Captain.

  The Carlingue had increased their level of activity in the last few months following the replacement of René Bousquet as chief of the French police by Joseph Darnand. Bousquet had cooperated with the German occupiers in les rafles against the Jews, but was still seen as being somewhat too soft. Darnand was a French veteran of the Great War, decorated for bravery against the Germans, yet had aligned himself and his militia to Petain and the collaborationist Vichy government. Following his appointment as Bousquet’s successor, Darnand had pledged the full allegiance and support of his combined force of police and militia to the Gestapo, which had earned him an honorary SS Sturmbahnfuhrer rank. Once in place he had not hesitated in using his dual powers as police chief and secretary of state to accelerate the activities of deportation of Jews and suppression of the Resistance.

  If the Carlingue were involved, then Marner was going to need some help from Boris.

  Chapter Six

  Marner returned directly from Schull’s hotel to his office and spent some time looking for files on the Carlingue, hoping to find any information on their members. His primary interest was to find photos that he would be able to show to Pichon to enable identification of whoever had searched Schull’s room. When his request to a filing clerk for assistance was met with a look of incredulity, he quickly interpreted this to mean that it was indeed a stupid question. The Carlingue enjoyed patronage from the very highest level within the SS and therefore it was absurd to assume that there would be any files.

  He ascended to the top level of number 74, which housed Department II, responsible for relations with and overview of the French civilian forces, including the police and gendarmes. This situation was muddied by the fact that Darnand’s militia were directly aligned with the Gestapo and thus emboldened to ignore any attempt at control or management by Department II of the RHSA. One of the French domestic law enforcement services would have control of the older pre-war criminal records, files that might still contain photos of Carlingue members. However, the particular individual in the office who Marner trusted and was seeking was absent and he was reluctant to share his interest with anyone else.

  There was considerable noise and excitement in the offices at the latest news. Not only was Rome now totally in the hands of the US Army, but there was also outrage that the Americans had not respected the ‘open city’ policy and had fired on units of the German army who were trying to leave peacefully.

  The other news circulating was that there was significant and wide scale Allied bombardment of the coastal defences from Belgium to Brittany, together with a massive escalation in unidentified radio traffic from inside and outside France. Some speculation talked of preparation for an invasion by the Allies in the Pas de Calais, the most likely and closest point from England for them to put their troops ashore. Others proposed that since the Allies had naval dominance of the North Sea, the invasion would be in the Low Countries, maybe even as far east as Denmark, which would allow them to strike quickly and directly into Germany itself.

  Setting aside this ‘static’, Marner returned to his desk intent on concentrating on what he could do something about – his case. He had only been there a few minutes when his phone rang. It was Lemele; she wanted to meet with him to update on what she had discovered. They agreed to meet at the same café as the previous day.

  Again he managed to obtain a car, but this time only a Kubelwagen that dealt badly with the potholed streets and slid alarmingly on the damp roads as the driver threw it around the turns. It had now started to drizzle, with a stiff breeze gusting and driving the sparse rain drops under the canvas roof cover of the car.
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  Lemele was already there when he arrived, sitting at the same table and sheltered from the weather under the awning. She did not smile and seemed only marginally happier to see him than yesterday, even though it had been her proposal that they meet. Marner took encouragement from the fact that she at least shook his hand this time. He ordered a coffee and they sat in silence until it arrived. This time, ignoring the Parisian etiquette, he immediately turned his chair to face her, although she felt no compunction to do the same. So whilst she watched the falling raindrops sparkle and dash in the chinks of sunlight breaking through the black thunderclouds overhead, he made a teetering stack from the dirty coffee cups and saucers left on the table, using this childlike amusement as cover to complete his appraisal of her. Her face had a long aquiline nose, slightly too strong in side-profile but saved by its fine narrowness and that distracting, incredible mouth. Green eyes that glittered emerald in the light reflecting in them, hair that he had taken for auburn but in natural light was a dark shade of russet, confirmed as natural by her eyebrows. So a hint of redhead; he should beware of that, he though wryly.

  The waiter who delivered the coffee removed Marner’s precarious tower of china with a contemptuous “tut” and shake of his head. His departure was Lemele’s prompt. Her first news was that she had been replaced immediately that morning, as predicted. The new inspector, Franck Thioly, had shown little interest in Lemele’s basic report of details and no interest in sharing his own thoughts with her.