J. Janes - Tapestry

All talking had ceased, even the hustle and bustle from the kitchens where Rudi had come to stand, poised in the doorway. A fresh apron girded the 166 kilos. Flaxen-haired, his blue eyes small and watchful, the florid, net-veined cheeks round like a burnished soccer ball, this survivor of the uprising of 8 November 1923, the Munich Putsch, was proprietor and owner of this conquering image to a just reward on the Champs-Elysees and right across the avenue from the Lido.

‘My Hermann,’ he called out, the voice beer-hall big. ‘Your table, mein Lieber , and yours, too, mein brillanter franzosischer Oberdetektiv .’

They had never had a table reserved for them anywhere in the past two-and-a-half years. The clientele cheered. Embarrassed, baffled and grinning ear to ear, Hermann led the way to the table as Helga, Rudi’s youngest sister, her blonde braids and pale-blue work dress tight, hustled through with two overflowing steins.

‘The Spaten Dunkel, Hermann,’ sang out Rudi. ‘Fresh in on this morning’s Ju 52.’

From Munich, from home. Well, nearly so.

‘ Danke, Rudi,’ managed the guest of honour, what honour?

There was a nod, a, ‘I’ve made Lederknodel for you and Rostbraturste , but if the Oberdetektiv St-Cyr would prefer, I can also recommend the Schneckensuppe to be followed by the Geschnetzeltes .’ Snail soup and veal slices in cream, or liver dumplings in a clear broth, and afterwards, small sausages with the taste and aroma of the beechwood over whose charcoal they would have been grilled.

Roggenbrot , too, noted Kohler. Rye bread made just like they used to, and real butter, none of that crappy Norwegian fish-oil margarine the troops usually got and the French had to eat when they could get it.

The beer was cold and dark, not too sweet and with the simple lightness of hops.

‘Helga, what the hell is going on?’ blurted Hermann, as puzzled as his partner.

The girl quivered. ‘You’re back, mein Schatz, ’ my treasure, she said with tears. ‘We are all counting on you, Hermann. All of us girls. Every woman in Paris. The men, too. The real men. Not the monsters.’

They had eaten in silence and eaten far better than most in the country, St-Cyr knew, and certainly if the Resistance were to learn of it, which they would, they wouldn’t waste time with this Surete, but would shoot first and then ask the questions even though Hermann always seemed to be oblivious to the fact when here.

Conscious of the diners, Hermann had tried not to notice the girls who stole glances at their table while in the midst of conversation. Their trembling uncertainty, their outright fear-some more than others-was all too clear. Bed with the enemy and watch out, eh? he’d be saying to himself. The savage brutality of the Trinite attack, the full frontal and back views, those too of the academy victim. Every one of Chez Rudi’s female clientele had seen Le Matin or editions of the other papers. While their men friends tried to reassure them, there were those who smirked-SS and Gestapo who must know this Kripo and his French partner had a problem no one else wanted.

‘But have we been granted a reprieve, Hermann?’

From the general dislike and the hatred, too, for always pointing the finger of truth no matter where it belonged? ‘It looks like it.’

‘Talbotte’s not just being kind. Our prefet ’s gone out of his way to forget my having knocked him out and threatened him with grand theft at the Liberation when all such accounts will be settled.’

‘But has been told to keep us run off our feet?’

By Boemelburg and the Kommandant von Gross-Paris. ‘Perhaps.’

Even Rudi had made certain they would be left alone to discuss things. Cigarettes, pipe tobacco and small cigars had been laid on, cognac too, and real coffee. ‘The Trinite victim,’ said Kohler, lighting another cigarette as that pipe of Louis’s was packed. ‘Madame Adrienne Guillaumet must have been heading somewhere other than home when she left the Ecole Centrale at nine thirty p.m. or close to it.’

The lessons in Deutsch would have been over, everyone hurrying from the building into the teeming rain and the blackout. ‘But had she arranged to be picked up?’

Or had her choice of a bicycle taxi been governed solely by chance? ‘She would have had to go to place de l’Opera first if she’d arranged the ride ahead of time. Money paid in advance, Louis, the half down probably and one hell of a lot of trust, if you ask me. I’m not sure she could have afforded it, even though the flat she lives in speaks of money.’

Good for Hermann. He had faced up to what the woman could well have been up to.

‘If she did go to place de l’Opera, Louis, was she overheard by her assailant when ordering that taxi?’

Had he prior knowledge of her? Had he been stalking her, the wife of Captain Jean-Matthieu Guillaumet, resident of the Oflag at Elsterhorst, the POW camp for French officers to the northeast of Dresden? ‘If so, she couldn’t have been aware of it.’ But that, too, could mean, as they both knew, that her assailant must have had ample sources of information.

‘Isn’t that why so many here are afraid, Louis? They’ve sensed that others have been watching them and that they could damned well be called to account.’

For sleeping with the enemy, but perhaps it would be best to ease Hermann’s mind a little. ‘There could have been extenuating circumstances. Reason enough for her having hired it.’

Everyone knew velo-taxi drivers, like concierges, were funds of information if for a price. ‘The eggs, white flour and sugar, Hermann. The milk also, with which to bake the forbidden-by-law birthday cake of a child.’

And a simple enough reason. ‘I don’t know if her son or daughter has a birthday coming up. Giselle and Oona might, but I’ve not been back to see them yet.’

Hermann was not only worried about those two women he lived with, he was blaming himself since, through no fault of his own, he would still be considered one of the Occupier.

‘She left her children alone, Louis. Classes would have begun at six thirty p.m. Travel from the flat on the rue Saint-Dominique would have taken a good half-hour, more if she stopped in at place de l’Opera.’

‘But did her assailant imagine what she was up to, or had he known of her from before?’

That was the question but still it had to be asked. ‘A random attack when there’s been so many?’

‘Had he been following her, Hermann?’

‘There was a fingernail.’

Pipe in hand, Louis looked at that thing. ‘Dirt, blood and grease, Hermann, this last no doubt the same as I felt on the seats of that taxi and on her shoulders. Big hands. Strong hands.’

‘The Drouant attack. It’s not that far a walk from the passage de la Trinite.’

That attack had taken place at 11.52 p.m. and with plenty of time to have gotten into position from the Trinite. ‘And not random but planned-it must have been, Hermann-the whereabouts of the victims known well beforehand but even more importantly, that M. Gaston Morel would have his driver take his wife’s stepsister home early.’

‘And that Morel would accompany Madame Barrault to her flat on the rue Taitbout, eh? She’s not wealthy, but does live near enough to the place de l’Opera if it was being watched for women like that.’

‘Another POW wife, another stolen wedding ring, but condemnation and punishment this time for committing adultery with a Frenchman, the husband of another. I’m certain Madame Morel is convinced of it.’

‘As is her friend, Denise Rouget.’

‘A social worker.’