J. Janes - Tapestry

‘It could have been awarded by a friend or associate for services rendered to that friend or an associate of said.’

‘Or associates of both.’

Scandal had also plagued the Legion d’honneur. Hadn’t Daniel Wilson, the playboy son-in-law of President Jules Grevy caused that one’s downfall only hours after he had been returned to office shy; for a second term in 1885?

Wilson had sold Legion d’honneur medals and ribbons to retire gambling debts and other loans. ‘Yet still we all aspire to it,’ said Jean-Louis with a sigh, ‘and nearly everywhere it’s worn it brings profound respect and a willingness by others to give assistance and even to obey.’

The boulevard du Palais separated the Prefecture from the Palais de Justice. Kohler stood in brief shelter by the main entrance of the latter and under a stone lintel that still carried the carved motto of the Third Republic: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite , freedom, equality and brotherhood, but had been bolted over by a white wooden signboard with black Gothic letters that gave Vichy’s and the Marechal Petain’s Travail, Famille, Patrie , work, family and homeland.

Two paniers a salade -Black Marias, salad shakers with individual wire cages inside-had pulled in to the kerb. Emptied, girls of all ages tumbled out, raising voices to the rain. Unchained and then linked up again, these ‘submissive’ girls, who probably hadn’t had licences and certainly looked like repeat offenders, were lined up: no hats, all shades of hair now drenched, the dye, mascara, rouge and eye shadow streaming on some, while the open-toed high heels of several were disintegrating. One aged daughter of the night had been pinpricked by cobbler’s tacks that had held the red felt uppers to their white wooden soles. She cursed, gestured, shrilled at the flics , ‘LECHE-BOTTES! LECHEZ MON CUL, ESPECES DE PORCS A LA MANGUE!’ Boot-lickers. Kiss my ass, you worthless pigs. ‘Voila, mon cul!’ she shrilled and flared her bare bottom at them only to be given a clout she’d remember. The stocking seams she had painted up the backs of her legs had smeared.

Herded by their guardians, they were marched along the rue de Lutece towards him, convicts already, since under French law a suspect was considered guilty until proven innocent and that could take years. The Police Correctionnelle, the small crimes court, wouldn’t be in session until 2.00 p.m., a long wait. Afterwards they’d be taken to the Petite Roquette over in the Eleventh on the rue de la Roquette, and wasn’t that prison, like all the others, vastly overcrowded? Hadn’t one French citizen in every fifty been deprived of their liberty? In November of last year the courts here and all over France, for the whole country had been fully occupied then, had begun to submit copies of every verdict and sentence to the Gestapo. One never knew, as Louis had said at the Drouant, when something useful might turn up, and the Gestapo knew it as well and that even the most incidental thing might lead them to a resistant or network of them or to valuables that should have been declared.

The Police Judiciaire, known colloquially as the quai des Orfevres-Prefet Talbotte’s criminal investigation department-was in this massive warren of buildings and courtyards. Detectives were on the third floor, those who kept tabs on visiting nationals on the fourth via Staircase D, if one had a mind to find it. The Bicycle Brigade was in an entirely different building, so if one had to track a stolen bike’s owner who had been murdered, one had not just to go from floor to floor, but from building to building. There were almost two million bicycles in the city, the cost of a new one impossible, if one could be found, and weren’t velo-taxi licences on file over there, too?

Of course they were. And of course the racket in stolen bikes was huge, but first he had to find the owner of a certain dog.

Records was at the far end of one of the courtyards and in under a stone arch that must date from God alone knew when. The notice board at the head of the stone staircase, whose steps were worn, was cluttered. A reward of one hundred thousand francs was being offered for turning in the names and addresses of those engaged in criminal activities, i.e., the Resistance and those who were trying to avoid the forced labour call-up. Hadn’t Louis’s housekeeper two sons in that age bracket? Hadn’t Yvon Courbet, a veteran of that other war, made damned certain his boys would avoid this one and now that much-hated call-up by finding essential jobs for them in a munitions factory?

Posted dead centre of the notices was an open-fold from the IKPK’s** magazine, Internationale Kriminalpolizei . Even the Swiss were decrying the explosion of blackout crime:

The problem is, of course, not nearly so rampant as in Paris where Gestapo Boemelburg, head of Section IV, blames French decadence and immorality. When asked to comment, Herr Boemelburg has declined beyond saying emphatically that the problem has been blown out of all proportion and that the inves shy;tigation, though under tight wraps, is rapidly drawing to a success shy;ful and gratifying conclusion .

Horseshit! But even back in September 1940, Boemelburg had known he’d have to have at least one flying squad he could count on to fight common crime and be honest about it. A shining example of law and order in an age of officially sanctioned crime on a horrendous scale.

The dog registry wasn’t even here. Uncovered as he removed the article so that Louis could have a read, a card stated that it was now to be found in another building.

Dry as a bone, Louis was waiting for him. Vacillating, shifty-eyed and dark-shadowed, the clerk behind him was as withered as the apple that one was saving for dessert, once the lunch of thin soup and a half-bulb of garlic had been consumed.

‘The prefet has been most kind, Hermann. Everyone wishes to assist us but,’ he confided softly, ‘the offer of ten francs for turning away while I had a look was most appreciated.’

Unknown to the clerk, Louis had pulled and palmed a file card from one of the rotary drums, but even so, had best be told. ‘Just you wait, then, until Talbotte sees the newspapers. We’re never going to hear the end of it!’

The card was for an Irish Terrier bitch named Lulu. The clerk, whose salary couldn’t be any more than his prewar twelve thousand francs a year in this age of rampant inflation and frozen salaries, could easily have taken this Kripo for a thousand, which just showed the difference between Louis and himself.

‘It’s what the card reveals that’s important, Hermann, but for now we’d best find a little peace and quiet.’

‘I know just the place.’

‘I’m not going there. I absolutely refuse.’

‘Don’t be an idiot. You’re as hungry as I am. Besides, it will give us a chance to tap the street if nothing else.’

He was right, of course. These days radio-trottoir was often the only source of information. Pavement radio, gossip but prolific, and what better place to go than the fount of it all? ‘Then I had best tell you that though the theft has yet to be set down in stone by Records, that velo-taxi must have been stolen from place de l’Opera. That’s where it was registered to work from.’

And with the Kommandantur itself in full view across the square.

At noon, Chez Rudi’s was packed. Wehrmacht and SS grey-green uniforms were everywhere, Gestapo black too, and Kriegsmarine or Luftwaffe blue, with scattered petites Parisiennes and Blitzmadel from home, here to do their duty. Beer-hall big under its brightly coloured murals, the restaurant was still such a bit of home, Hermann was forced to swallow tightly.