J. Janes - Tapestry

‘And now?’ he had to ask. ‘Now we must solve the matter or face the consequences.’ Arms weren’t regulation issue for Blitzmadel , not unless they had first been assigned a special duty and then trained for it. The Fraulein Remer had spoken French fluently. ‘Her accent was good,’ Herve Desrochers had said. ‘She wanted to know how well you and Herr Kohler worked together, had heard lots of stories, but wanted to hear it from a Frenchman. The operator of that machine, you know how he is. A mouth like a pipe organ.’

‘A storm,’ Antoine had said. ‘We had to find out who she was, Monsieur Louis.’

‘It was intelligence work,’ Dede had added. ‘Information you and Herr Kohler would need.’ There had been a fully loaded spare clip among the boy’s share of the loot, but no time to take the matter further. The handbag had been quickly restuffed and now lay in the Citroen under the front seat with their guns, the car locked, of course, though that in itself was no guarantee against theft and he would absolutely have to find Hermann and quickly.

‘There was a chocolate bar,’ Dede had added, ‘and … and a small tin of bonbons a la menthe from the Abbaye de Flavigny. These, they are missing.’

And hadn’t there been an explosion of juvenile delinquency? Hadn’t the number of serious cases before the courts tripled since 1939? Didn’t Hercule the Smasher preside over the worst of these cases in the departement de la Seine? ‘Hercule Rouget … Ah merde, merde, I should have thought of it when questioning that daughter of his but spent the time with Gaston Morel.’

When Luc Desrocher’s velo-taxi , the Red Comb of the Magnificent Cock, rolled in, he was ready. ‘Monsieur Albert Vasseur? Surete. A moment, please.’

‘Time is too precious. How the hell am I supposed to pay the evening’s rent for this shit box when you people refuse to release my taxi for repairs and claim it is needed evidence?’

‘I’ll see what can be done.’

‘Have I not heard that before?’

‘Calm down.’

‘Or you will have me arrested? HEY, OO-OO, MES AMIS , HELP! It wasn’t my fault the taxi was stolen. Georges, tell him. Henri, you too. Martin, you also, and Jacques.’

They had all climbed out from the shelter of their respective cabs, rain or no rain.

‘They will vouch for me, Inspector. One pedals and pedals and cannot piss one’s trousers, can one?’

There was definite agreement on the matter, tobacco smoke too.

‘I came in and hardly made it to the watering trough.’

‘You must know how the Germans are for cleanliness, Inspector,’ insisted one. ‘If they catch us pissing into the boulevard des Capucines, they have a fit and give us three years forced labour in the Reich or the same but of idleness in the Sante.’

‘The vespasienne is over there in the darkness,’ said another. ‘Albert, he has …’

‘Yes, yes. Please let him tell me himself.’

‘We’re only trying to help,’ grumbled one.

‘No one asks our opinion,’ said another.

‘Blackout mugging and rapes are bad for business yet the law refuses to listen. Come on, mes amis, let’s go.’

‘Wait! I’ll listen to each of you but first …’

‘I stepped into the urinal, Inspector, and up to the trough,’ said Vasseur. ‘I hurried with the buttons, one of which popped off, and there’s no light in those damned things anymore, so it’s gone forever. Who the hell’s going to bomb them anyway, a little pinpoint of light like that and seen from five thousand metres or more? Others came in behind to rub shoulders. Jesus, save us, what was I to have thought on a night like that or this? The weather brings on the flood. The one to my left said it was a bitch; the one to my right sighed with relief.’

‘And then?’

‘The one on the right finished up. The one to the left took longer but stayed to let me finish and didn’t go out the other way as he could have, so I was forced to retreat and went out as I’d come in.’

‘With that one right behind you.’

‘That is correct. When I got here, the boys were already chasing after my taxi.’

‘Height?’

‘Both medium.’

‘Weight?’

‘The first broad-shouldered like a wedge, the second with the gut of a barrel. I had to throw up a hand to stop myself from kissing the metal as he went past me on entering to relieve himself.’

The urinal’s walls were concentric shells with standing room only between. ‘Those two sandwiched you.’

‘It’s possible.’

Hermann, if he could, would always share his cigarettes at times like this, but there were none. ‘The accent of the man with the gut?’

‘The Butte.’

Montmartre. ‘Anything else?’

‘The smell of sardines. I’m sure of this.’

Even so, it would have to be said. ‘Those urinals reek.’

‘Of course, and I can’t understand why I should have smelled such a meal. Perhaps it was simply because I was hungry. It’s been years since I’ve had any.’

‘Inspector, I smelled them too,’ interjected one of the others. ‘The son of a bitch who stole the taxi shoved me out of the way. I slipped as I grabbed him. I struggled to get up and he clobbered me. Hands … He had big hands, this much I do know also.’

‘ Oui, oui, but sardines … ? Could it have been Norwegian fish-oil margarine?’

‘To keep out the rain?’ exclaimed another. ‘He’d have needed more than the tickets give.’

Considered muttering followed, then passive agreement. ‘Oilskins and old ones, Inspector. Grease on the shoulders, upper arms and hat, but, of course, a supply,’ said the one who had been shoved.

‘ Ah, bon, now we’re getting somewhere but, M. Vasseur, how did they know you would return here and not go directly to the Ecole Centrale to pick up Madame Guillaumet?’

‘Tell him, Albert,’ said one of the others. ‘You’re going to have to.’

‘Earlier I’d picked up a fare here. He asked to be taken to the intersection of the rue Reaumur and the boulevard de Sebastopol …’

‘And all but to the passage de la Trinite and close enough to the Ecole Centrale.’

This Surete had understood. ‘But when we got there, he changed his mind and asked to be brought back.’

The timing then; three men also. ‘And that one? Come, come, remember.’

‘How am I to do so? They come out of that cafe full of food and wine and smoking good cigars or cigarettes, and they shout, “Hey, you. Taxi,” as if they owned the world and had the right to order people around. Do you know where my beautiful Peugeot 301 is? A 1933 and cared for like a baby? They took her away in July of 1940, and when they discovered she had a thirst, brought her back minus the tyres and battery!’

A cigarette was offered in sympathy, a drag being inhaled and then another. ‘I took him where he wanted to go, Inspector. That’s my job, isn’t it?’

‘Of course, but didn’t he ask how much the fare would be?’

‘Like most of them here, he couldn’t have cared less, even though he was French, and if you know anything, you will know what I mean by that.’

‘Tall or not?’

‘Not so tall that he reached the clouds like the one in London.’

General Charles de Gaulle. ‘The accent?’

‘A bac .’

The baccalaureat and entrance to higher education.

‘A former military man, perhaps. These days the mothballs shouldn’t try to roll around so much in the armoire they get in the road of the mice and disturb them.’

The Resistance invariably wanted no part of such officers who, now that the war was turning, increasingly wanted to command them.