J. Janes - Tapestry

She was of just a little more than medium height and delicate, yet not delicate, though hiding her thoughts perfectly under such a scrutiny. Bathes regularly, he would have said to Hermann had the two of them been discussing her. Visits the local bathhouse at least once a week. Insists on it even though the cash of such a modest expense is desperately needed. ‘Mademoiselle, you sold a stamp collection.’

‘Noelle, what is this, please?’

‘It wasn’t mine, Papa. I found it on the metro .’

‘And didn’t turn it in to the lost property office?’

‘ Papa , I was working the night shift. I didn’t want to be late. I …’

‘Sergeant, a moment, please. Am I correct in concluding that you didn’t know about this “grandmother’s” stamp collection?’

‘What grandmother? Noelle, what is this one saying?’

Clearly the father hadn’t known of the stamps or even of the grandmother and just as clearly the girl felt trapped, she looking to this Surete for help when, of course, none could be offered, or could it? ‘Mademoiselle, when, exactly, did you find the collection?’

Had he believed her? ‘About three weeks ago. The metro is always crowded these days. I was tired, you understand. Suddenly a seat became available. Others didn’t see this at first. I squeezed past them and dropped into it and … and only then realized that there was something on the floor at my feet.’

‘A package.’

‘ Oui . I thought to leave it-one never knows if touching such a thing might bring trouble. In the end, I …’

‘Picked it up.’

‘Oui.’ Would he now ask if anyone had seen her do so?

‘And at the hospital you put it into your locker?’

‘ Oui . I didn’t even know what it was. I swear it. All night I was run off my feet. Pneumonia, babies, the flu, the epidemic we’ve been having of appendectomies due to those damned rutabagas. In the morning, I forgot all about it and … and hurried home.’

She should have been an actress. ‘You left it in your locker under lock and key.’

Ah, merde , was this Surete on to her? ‘That is correct.’

Now to give her a little more line. ‘Day then passed into day, shift into shift, until you realized you could no longer turn it into the lost property office without explaining the delay.’

‘That, too, is correct. I … I sold it instead.’ Confessing to such a thing, even though he had known of it, was still a gamble but sometimes if one didn’t take a chance, one didn’t get anywhere.

‘ Cherie, I know things haven’t been easy, but to sell something that belonged to another …’

‘ Papa, I couldn’t control myself!’

How many times had he heard that same excuse from unlicenced prostitutes? wondered St-Cyr, sighing inwardly, but he’d have to lie a little to keep the fish on the line. ‘For now we’ll leave the press photo session, mademoiselle, as I wouldn’t want your dinner to get cold. Please be prepared, though, to offer clear and precise answers when next called upon. Sergeant …’

‘Inspector …’ began Jourdan.

‘See that she tells you everything, mon ami , then when we next meet, if she’s out, you can relay it to me.’

Three weeks … to keep a collection like that under wraps for even that length of time had to imply control and/or fear, but at the door, he said, ‘Mademoiselle, your father has corroborated the matron’s statement to my partner that you willingly allowed and then went out of your way to assist the press in photographing last night’s Trinite victim.’

A hardness entered, a breath was taken and held. ‘I did and don’t deny it.’

‘Two thousand francs wasn’t much.’

The shrug she gave was curt. ‘I did what I had to for Papa ’s sake.’

That, too, would have to be entered into. ‘And now, what will you do?’

‘Me? Do like everyone else. The systeme D .’

From the verb se debrouiller , to manage. ‘And write letters to relatives in the country?’

‘Ours are all dead. Papa, he … he writes to old comrades-in-arms.’

The ‘grey’ market, the using those one knew, even if in but the remotest of ways, for help. ‘A ham, a chicken, some potatoes …’

‘Yes, yes!’

‘And do they send him such in the post?’

Like everyone else was doing if they could. ‘Sometimes.’

‘And what is offered in exchange?’

‘Tobacco …’ Ah, Sainte-Mere, he had made her so edgy she’d let it slip, and he had known she would!

The father had been desperate and had had to budget himself, but had he lied and was he also spreading that hatred of his towards those women who were having sex with the enemy, their husbands and fiances being absent as prisoners of war? ‘Cigarettes have become the preferred currency, haven’t they? You cleaned out your locker at the Hotel-Dieu, did you?’

This one was trouble! ‘My locker … ? Why … why, yes. Matron stood over me while I did. “Quickly, quickly,” she said. I was in tears, you understand. I could hardly see. I … I just grabbed my handbag and things, changed into my street clothes and left.’

Having then been escorted to the door. ‘Tears. Yes, I can understand those. Your father’s Legion d’honneur, mademoiselle. Why doesn’t he wear it?’

‘He misplaced it. I’ve looked everywhere. One of the kids in the building must have been in and taken it. I’ll get it back. I know I will.’ Merde, why had he had to notice it was missing? ‘I … I’ve just lost my job, Inspector, haven’t yet had the time to ask around.’

‘But will, and you’ll get another.’ But had she been forced to give up the ribbon and to then let the press take those photographs?

He walked away from her, this Surete, the brim of that shabby fedora yanked determinedly down, the collar of an equally shabby overcoat turned up. He didn’t look back until he had reached the bottom of the stairs. Only then did he see her standing here at the railing, hands on the laundry that would never dry completely but always remain a little damp and frozen.

It wasn’t far to the Hotel-Dieu , especially not if one had a motorcar, and this she heard starting up, as did everyone else in the building.

When opened by an attendant and carefully searched by this Surete, especially along its metal seams, the locker yielded three pale green tickets bearing dates of the fifteenth and twenty-third of December last, and as recently as the seventh of January, all from Ma Tante , ‘My Aunt,’ the mont-de-piete of the Credit Municipal de Paris, the pawnshop at 55 rue des Francs-Bourgeois.

Kohler gripped the Ford’s steering wheel. The rue Laffitte, which wasn’t far to the east of the rue Taitbout, threw up the faint blue firefly lights of its bicycles and bicycle-taxis. The slit-eyed headlamps of a gazogene -powered lorry nudged into the stream only to find two petrol-driven Wehrmacht lorries hungering after it for half the load of black-market goods, the usual tariff.

A rare autobus au gazogene burped in rebellion, the sodden line of stragglers impassively boarding, while here and there the glow from cigarettes was hardly noticeable due to the extreme shortage of rationed tobacco and the verdammter Frost !

Parisians were in misery and this Kripo was definitely among them. Madame Marie-Leon Barrault, Victim Four, hadn’t been home. The concierge of the former mansion on the rue Taitbout, that droopy-shouldered salaud of a now run-down tenement, had let him waste valuable time climbing five flights of lousy threadbare stairs and then had let him come right back down.