J. Janes - Tapestry

‘Provisions,’ chuckled Morand. ‘On our way here we had to pick up a few things.’

Two baguettes, one string bag of cooking onions and potatoes, a chain of garlic bulbs, four litres of unlabelled red, one of oil, too, and good by the look, a cabbage, three kilos of carrots and one newspaper-wrapped parcel that had leaked butcher-blood.

‘To think that I almost bought one of these cars,’ said Kohler with a sigh. ‘I was in England on a police course at the time. The British made ninety-seven thousand of them but they were also made in the Reich. Mon Dieu, I could have got one for 145 pounds-that was about 10,875 francs or close to it then.’ And now only about two thousand francs more than the price of a brand-new bicycle if one could find it! ‘Rudi told us the press were going to cover things in detail and that it would be best for us to help you boys, but how did the two of you get chosen?’

‘We drew lots at the briefing this morning and our number came up,’ said Privet.

They were heading for place de l’Opera now. Long queues for permission, lost IDs and complaints, et cetera. ‘Good. I can see that we’re going to get along. Don’t park too close to the barricades. It’s better if we walk a little. That way the sentries won’t get anxious.’

The Kommandantur, with its rain-soaked swastika and big white signboard in heavy black Gothic lettering, was in the same building as the leading branch of a bank, behind whose plate-glass windows a forgotten poster with permed mother and saccharine-smiling kids blithely announced, PARTEZ EN VACANCES, SANS SOUCI, LOUEZ UN COFFRE AU COMPTOIRE NATIONAL D’ESCOMPTE DE PARIS.

Go on holiday without fear-rent a safe-deposit box!

‘Your papers, press cards and badges, mes amis . You’d better let me have them for a moment. That way we’ll be able to go right in.’

The poster was big, bright and brand-new, thought St-Cyr, and it decorated Au Philateliste Savant’s window so that one had difficulty looking into the shop. Spaced as though on either side of an open road, d’apres Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz , long double lines of workmen and women from all walks of life were heading towards the distant smokestacks of the Reich. Above a slender horizon tinged with red, the helmet-and-chin portrait of a stern and unyielding Wehrmacht strong-arm bravely faced the current hostilities.

ILS DONNENT LEUR SANG. They are giving their blood, the thing read. DONNEZ VOTRE TRAVAIL. Give your labour to save Europe from Bolshevism.

Odilon Belanger shrugged. ‘They came this morning, Inspector. Monsieur Picard threatened trouble if I didn’t let them hang it.’

‘And that one?’

‘Reads his newspapers. Sits next to his safe.’

Nearing seventy, Felix Picard was ramrod stiff and thin, all nose, neck and fingers. The hairline was receding, the narrow brow dominant above gold-rimmed pince-nez and intense blue eyes, the shirt collar and tie so tight and out-of-date one had to take another look: 1928 perhaps, 1920 maybe, but definitely a neckband shirt and detachable Argonne collar, the cheapest of the cheap.

L’Oeuvre , that anti-Vichy, pro-Nazi, virulently collaborationist rag of Marcel Deat’s Rassemblement National Populaire, was lowered. ‘You took your time, Inspector. Am I to be compensated for the loss of business?’

The weekly Je Suis Partout was handy. Anti-Third Republic, anti-Semitic, anti-Communist and very pro-German, et cetera. ‘Not if you want your property returned.’

‘But …’ He blinked. ‘Nothing has been stolen. Absolument rien .’

The surprise of surprises, eh? ‘Don’t be difficult. We already know you’ve broken enough laws to close the shop and see you in the Sante for a visit of no less than three years.’

‘ Merde, and you call yourself a police officer!’

‘Monsieur …’

‘The safe, it is ruined. The cat, ma petite Angele, has abandoned me, and you … you stand here accusing me of lying?’

He slammed the paper down, stood tall and swore, ‘ J’irai le dire a la kommandantur .’

I’ll go and tell the Germans about it. ‘You do that.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You heard what I said.’

‘Inspector …’ hazarded Picard.

‘That’s better. Now start talking. Two or more twists of gold louis, black-market …’

‘Only the one. The louis were all I had for my old age.’

‘And the illegally obtained rations?’

‘The cat …’

‘Monsieur, what was stolen?’

The louis had been returned-they must have been, thought Picard, and that could only mean the flic had taken them and thought better of it! ‘An album of firsts. The 1849 to 1850s, among them the twenty-centime black, the blue also, which was never issued because the postage rates were changed immediately after its printing, the pale vermillion “Vervelle” forty-centime, a sheet of which was ungummed, the 1862 reissues complete, the Napoleon IIIs of 1863-1870 … Those of the colonies, the 1859 to 1865 Eagle and Crown, the 1877 to 1878 Peace and Commerce, especially the bluish twenty-five-centime, all of those from the French Congo, French Equatorial Africa, French Guiana, French India, French Morocco, Polynesia and the Sudan, Indo-China also. The 1889 five-centime overprint on the thirty-five-centime orange with the surcharge inverted; the 1892 seventy-five-centime orange with the Indochine absent …’

‘A fortune?’

‘Once in a lifetime such a deal comes along.’

‘ Ah, bon . Now for the difficult part. How did it “come along”?’

‘Inspector, must I?’

‘It’s Chief Inspector and please don’t tell me you bought it at the open-air stamp fair.’

Held every Thursday in fine weather on the park benches of the rond-point of the Champs-Elysees and a favourite of the Occupier.

‘A girl … I’d never seen her before. She had no understanding of …’

‘The value.’

‘She simply said her grand-maman wished to sell the collection.’

‘And?’

He had best shrug, thought Picard. ‘I offered.’

‘After some deliberation?’

‘A little. One can’t always be sure. Stamps, like rare paintings, can be forged.’

‘And you were suspicious?’

‘Have I not the right to be after fifty-six years in the business, my father before me?’

‘Her name?’

‘I didn’t catch it.’

‘Her age?’

‘I’m not certain.’

‘Hair colour?’

‘Brown, I think.’

This was going nowhere. Perhaps if the bracelets were brought out …

The handcuffs! ‘Inspector …’

‘Monsieur, you bought on the quiet, n’est-ce pas ? First, where, really, did the collection come from; second, how much did you pay for it and what was its estimated value to you, the expert with … was it fifty-six years of experience? Thirdly, the name and address of the one who sold it to you, and if you gave that one a sex change, correct your little mistake.’

The flics had always been shits, the Surete far worse. ‘The name and address she gave must have been false, though I wasn’t certain of this at the time. The price paid was twenty-thousand francs-I’ve not much for a life’s work, as you can see.’

‘And its estimated value?’

‘I didn’t make an exact appraisal.’

‘Monsieur, you had a good look as soon as that “girl” left the shop. You closed up and went to that room you’ve rented for years in the Hotel Ronceray. Must I ask the magistrate for a search warrant?’

‘Between seven hundred and fifty thousand and one million francs.’

The bastard. ‘Old francs?’