by Andrew Wood
Working his way steadily through the excellent bottle of wine, Marner perused the hand-written menu card absently. Being in the mood for a simple and good quality steak, he was dismayed to find that the menu seemed to be either ‘volaille’ - a universal description for anonymous forms of poultry, or fish of types that he had never heard of; all in sauces. He had learned that sauces were a standard ploy used by restaurants to hide the poor quality of the meat that was available under the rationing.
Setting the menu aside, he turned his attention instead to the view of the river. A few fishing boats were making their way into the docks on the opposite bank and he was disappointed not to see any larger military vessels or a submarine or two.
So engrossed was he in the spectacle of the sun sinking over the buildings of the town, casting shadows into the orange glow reflecting off the river, that he was startled to find that Lemele had materialised beside him. Surprise turned to shock; she looked ten years younger than she had just two hours ago, her face glowing and her freshly washed hair turning red in the sunlight pouring through the window. He stood and realised that he was staring, but his eyes would not obey his brain; he reached for something, anything to say. “You look...ah...refreshed.”
She laughed and the sound was like cut crystal, seeming to tinkle around the room and causing the other diners to look up and around in surprise, to search for the source of this unfamiliar sound, as if laughter were long unheard of or even prohibited. It seemed an age since he had heard such a frank and open expression of happiness and he thought that this was a sound that should be heard more often.
“I had a long bath and then slept a while. I hope that I haven’t kept you waiting.”
Again he was rendered dumb as her head tilted towards him and he was entranced by her eyes catching and re-casting sparks of firelight. He gestured to the seat opposite him, finally finding his tongue and making a joke about the fact that the menu was going to disappoint her, but that there was no lack of superb wines to choose from.
The waitress appeared promptly as soon as they were seated and they ordered; Marner picked the same fish in sauce as Lemele, conveniently avoiding the need to ask the waitress for explanations of what the various options were. At least they would be able to compliment each other on their good choice, or commiserate together.
They sat in silence, Lemele looking sideways out of the window at the view whilst he frantically searched for some topic of conversation that was both neutral and not about Graf. In the end she rescued him from the silence, although not quite as expected. “So, Dieter, do you have a wife back home, somewhere in Germany? Where is it that you come from? You mentioned that you know Leipzig.”
“I’m from Berlin. My wife, ex-wife I should say, is still there, along with my family.”
Moving quickly to cover her faux pas, Lemele asked him why he had joined the police.
“Because I wasn’t clever enough to do anything else.”
When she laughed at this, as he intended her to, he added, “No, I’m serious! My father and grandfather were both career army men and it was always assumed that I would follow. But I had absolutely no intention of joining the army. I had barely seen my father when I was young because he was always away, on the move. I had no desire to live that kind of life. In particular I wanted to stay in Berlin, which is a city that I love. Have you ever visited it?”
Lemele shook her head. “So why the police?”
“Honestly, it wasn’t that I really wanted to. I wasn’t sufficiently academic to go to university or to have a real career, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So joining the police was a kind of compromise to my father, the uniform and the discipline and the ‘honour’, if that is the right word. But most importantly, it kept me in Berlin.”
“But you made detective grade, surely that required some studying, examinations?”
“I made sergeant quite quickly and easily; the main qualification for that seemed to be not being entirely stupid or lazy. I actually found that I enjoyed police work, at least the part that is real crime solving. I enjoyed the mental activity of interpreting the evidence and information, even though there wasn’t much of that type of work as an ordinary police officer. But then I had a lucky break.”
He described how he had insisted on the use of finger-printing, then a relatively new and little used technique, during the investigation of a murder. This had enabled them to link that murder to a previous one, and then to another subsequent killing a month later. “The fact that we were dealing with a serial killer brought me to the attention of Ernst Gennat, who had recently been appointed as director of Berlin criminal police. Ever heard of him? Well, he was making leaps and bound in the science of criminology, the success rate of his department was amazing. He published a lot of articles and was actually the person who coined the term ‘serial killer’. So that was my lucky break and my easy passage to detective status.” He raised his glass in mock toast to his patron, to which she smiled and joined him.
“I had similar parental pressure too,” she confided. Her father had been a surgeon who had pioneered some advances in anaesthesiology, leading to improved post-operative recovery. “He never really had bedside manner,” she laughed. “He was too aloof and abrupt. I’m sure that is why he chose surgery as his speciality, because it meant that his patients were unconscious and so he didn’t have to talk to them.”
His minor fame following the publication of his work had resulted in the offer of a post at the Leipzig research hospital, and for a while in the late twenties and early thirties it was a good time for the whole family. Her father had enjoyed his revered status within the campus. It had been difficult for Lemele during the first six months, but some private language tuition paid for as part of her father’s remuneration had accelerated her absorption of the language and resulted in her finishing her high school studies with good marks. “Not sufficiently good alone, but with some influence by my father it was enough to get me one of the few places in the Leipzig medical school that were available to women.”
Marner duly picked up his cue from the tone of her voice. “But?”
“But it wasn’t what I wanted to do. My father had always wanted a boy, with the inevitable expectation that the son would follow the father. His real dream was of a family medical practice.” She took a sip of her wine and then continued, “So as you can imagine, he was rather miffed when my mother delivered him three un-academic girls!” She laughed at the irony. “With me being the oldest and the most studious and his best – only! – chance of seeing one of his offspring follow in his footsteps, I didn’t really have a choice.”
“So why didn’t you carry on and become a doctor?”
She looked at him carefully before answering. “Because this was Germany in the late ‘thirties. My father was becoming deeply unhappy. We all turned a blind eye to the fascism, but it was difficult for him to ignore that so many of his colleagues were disappearing, either fleeing or being arrested. So when it was announced in 1938 that all residence permits for foreigners were being annulled and would have to be reapplied for, my father decided not to do so. Although his permit would have been approved without problem, he saw it as his own small personal protest.”
Lemele lapsed into silence, both aware that so many subjects that seemed like safe, neutral ground brought them around to the war and therefore the unavoidable fact that they were on conflicting sides. Marner again struggled for an angle to lead them back; again Lemele took the initiative. “For me it was almost a relief because I’d struggled through two years of medical school and, even ignoring the fact that I wasn’t really motivated, it was blindingly obvious that I lacked the intellect to keep up. So being uprooted back to Paris gave me a very welcome escape, without the shame of flunking out. The medical school in Paris gave me an interview and rejected me, although I’ll confess to not having tried too hard to impress them,” she confided with a wink, “Leaving me with the perfect excuse to backpedal into something e
asier. I thought about dentistry but couldn’t stand the thought of fishing around in mouths.” She gave a mock shudder.
“As opposed to fishing around in dead bodies?”
“Well, I went to a lecture on forensic medicine and the scientific aspect of it caught my interest. So that’s what I did. Just as I finished and qualified, I found out that the police were opening their ranks to women and that my qualification would get me straight in. I had grand visions of using my skills to help solve crimes. Ha! The chauvinistic culture within the police meant that I was just left with the menial tasks that men couldn’t be bothered with. Domestic violence, abuse, that kind of thing.”
Fearing that the conversation was going to veer back to the subject of her missing persons, he asked if her family were still in Paris.
“They returned to Vichy when it became obvious that Paris was about to fall. Vichy was our hometown and my parents had kept our house there, planning for retirement. My father was absolutely horrified when Petain and his nest of vipers set themselves up there.”
“Maybe your government are actually well-intentioned and doing the best thing for the safety and well-being of the French people.”
She snorted with disgust. “Let us be clear: they are not my government, I didn’t vote for them. And what they are doing is what is best for them, whilst deporting French Jews to goodness only knows what fate. They cannot even claim that this is due to anti-Semitic sympathies because they also organise the deportation of non-Jewish citizens into forced labour.” This was a reference to the STO, Service du Travail Obligatoire, the conscription of French men who were being sent to work in Germany to cover for the lack of labour resource there.
“So why did you remain in Paris?” he asked, vowing to give one last effort to find a subject that would not descend into acrimony.
“Because I got married. My husband is a jazz musician, even gained some minor fame with his band, and Paris was the only place to be.”
The realisation sank in that his last ditch effort to find a neutral topic was doomed to fail, already spiralling out of control as politesse obliged him to ask the loaded question: “So what is he doing now?”
Instead of answering him, Lemele continued eating and a long silence stretched out, leaving him wondering if she had correctly heard the question or if perhaps the subject was simply too painful to contemplate or discuss. Leaving her in peace, he too gazed out of the window at the last moments of the sunset. The hazy orb of the sun touched a low bank of cloud which flared into orange rags, like a flame touching cotton. A new arrival in the restaurant distracted him and, when he looked back to the window, the moment was gone, only a crust of orange and burnt umber clouds crowning the last sliver of the sun.
He was surprised when finally, her plate empty, she sat back and resumed. “He joined the army immediately in 1940 and was sent to the front somewhere near Sedan. I don’t know if he is alive or dead. So I remain in our apartment in Paris, where he will know to find me when it all ends.”
Marner considered offering assistance to locate her husband, then reconsidered. In all probability he would be unable to find the man, even if he were still alive, and if he failed to find her husband it might lead her to assume that all hope was lost.
Once again silence settled, seconds and minutes ticked by. From what he could discern of her features she seemed relaxed. He took this as a good sign, despite the succession of reminders that they remained on opposite and conflicting sides. It left him frustrated that there seemed to be no topic of conversation that, like meteorites caught in a fatal gravitational pull, could avoid colliding with the big subject: the war. For Lemele, the only satisfactory outcome was the safe return of her husband and the liberation of her country. A prerequisite for which was the defeat of his own.
Thus it was a relief when she stood and stated that she was going to bed, a blessing when she attempted a smile and bade him a friendly goodnight.
Chapter Twenty Two
A Wehrmacht car arrived at the hotel at seven o’clock the following morning, calls from reception chasing them from their rooms with barely time to wash and pack their few things. With no time for breakfast, Marner insisted that the car make a detour via a boulangerie. They emerged from the car at the train station brushing crumbs and flakes of pastry from their clothes, causing him to realise that as well as grease spots on his tunic and trousers from the buttery croissants, his clothes were badly in need of cleaning after the exertions of the last few days.
The driver delivered them to the militia office, which was little more than a brick outhouse with a corrugated tin roof that had been tacked onto the side of the main terminal building. Inside the office they found it packed to overflowing with three militia, plus two Wehrmacht soldiers on either side of the door who had observed their approach through the window. At the back of the office was Graf, slumped in a chair. His hands were manacled in front of him, a chain linking the manacles to irons around his ankles.
Marner was happy to see that the soldiers were alert; they had saluted him as he entered and then immediately returned their attention to watching the rubble strewn parking area outside. One of the militia stood up from his desk, swaying slightly; he looked to be a serious drinker from his eyes and the broken veins in his cheeks and nose. “The train is on the platform, so we can take you there and get you settled on the train. Sir?”
“Is the train ready to leave?” enquired Marner.
“Not yet. Some repairs are being done up the line, we’re told. It will be perhaps an hour until it will get the all clear to move off.”
“Then we’ll just stay here. We need some coffee,” and he thrust some money at the milice. “Why don’t you go and find us some.”
The man took the money, looked at Marner and then at his colleagues and shrugged. “Does he want some?” he asked, gesturing with his head towards Graf.
“Ask him, he speaks French.”
Graf did not even look up when asked if he wanted coffee, made no indication that he was even aware of having heard, so the milice shrugged and departed in search of the refreshments.
The two remaining militia were younger and seemed more alert than their colleague. In response to Marner’s question they confirmed that they had no weapons other than batons; they would not be much use if anyone tried a rescue attempt for Graf. Marner considered that the probability of anyone trying it was low, but he had decided that it was preferable to stay in the office until just before the train departed. The downside was that the office stank. Out of deference to Lemele he suggested that she go and check around the station for any potential trouble, offering her the opportunity to escape from the pervading fug of stale male body odour and tobacco.
“What is it that I’m supposed to be checking for?”
“Suspicious characters hanging around, anything of that sort. You’re a police officer, you should know what to look for,” he joked.
“Still paranoid?” she enquired with a smile.
“I will be until he is safely installed in a cell at Foch.”
She nodded her agreement, also relieved that they were on the final leg of the journey and that she could go back to her normal life, whatever that might be with the storm of war now raging on French soil and advancing towards Paris. But for now she put that thought aside and left the office to go and snoop around the station.
When the coffee arrived it was bitter and cold and Marner involuntarily had to spit it back into the cup. “What the hell is this shit?” he roared, his escalation towards anger tempered by the realisation that the others, including the Wehrmacht guards, were all drinking theirs.
“Sorry Lieutenant,” responded the milice, although the tone of his voice made it clear that he was not sorry at all. “But that’s the sort of coffee we have to put with you see, what with this war going on and all that.” He smiled sidelong at his colleagues. “Rationing and privation and so on. Not up to the standard of the nice coffee you get up there in Paris I should think
, eh?”
Marner was tempted to throw the contents of his cup in the insolent man’s face, but instead turned to look out of the window.
He was relieved when Lemele came back forty minutes later to tell him that the train was preparing to depart. In a slow procession, Graf clanking and shuffling as best he could in the irons under the curious stares of others in the station, they found their assigned compartment on the train. Graf was installed in the corner farthest from the door, up against the window. Lemele took a seat beside the door, with one of the soldiers on the seat opposite her. The other was instructed to take up position outside the compartment door. Marner had already instructed Lemele and their escort not to talk to Graf and to report anything that he said.
As the train pulled slowly away from the station, Marner considered his strategy. He had to assume that the journey to Paris would go smoothly and that he would be limited to just eight hours to get what he wanted out of Graf. If there were stops and delays, the extra time would play in his favour. Whereas if the journey went without interruption, then in eight hours Graf would be delivered into the custody of the Paris military and out of his grasp. Marner might be afforded a bit part in the interrogation and proceedings, but that was all that it would be. Graf would know that he was going back to the certainty of a firing squad. He was clearly guilty of murdering the solider yesterday at the Bordeaux dock, without even the need to build and prove a case regarding Schull. Therefore, if Marner knew anything about humans and criminals in desperate situations, the closer that they approached to Paris, the more desperate Graf would become. Not forgetting that cornered rats did unpredictable and often dangerous things.
After weighing his limited options, he decided to play the silent game that Graf had opted for, at least for the first half of the journey. After that Marner would decide whether to try his line of questioning against his prisoner’s silence, or wait for Graf to open up voluntarily if there were any signs that he might be so inclined.
