J. Janes - Tapestry

‘Uncontrolled rage, Walter, was evident also in the earlier killing at the academy and …’ Louis paused. ‘In that of the passage de l’Hirondelle of yesterday afternoon, a girl who was wearing the overcoat and hat of Giselle le Roy.’

‘Who must have discovered she was being followed, Sturmbannfuhrer.’

‘Oberg’s choice of bait, Louis?’ blurted Boemelburg.

‘We don’t yet know where Mademoiselle le Roy is, but are working on it.’

‘There’s something else,’ apologized Hermann. ‘The Trinite victim, and both of the Drouant victims, were being investigated by the Agence Vidocq, a M. Flavien Garnier.’

‘You two … Are you both so blind? The avenue Foch and ourselves use them from time to time. Garnier is one of ours, as is his employer.’

‘The Intervention-Referat?’ managed Louis. It had had to be asked.

‘That I can’t, of course, answer, but I didn’t know the agence was keeping an eye on unlicenced horizontales . You watch yourselves with this. Don’t, and see what happens. Now get out. You have twenty-four hours and, Kohler …’

Boemelburg stubbed out his half-finished cigarette. ‘Don’t steal any more cars. It doesn’t look good for me in Berlin. It can’t, can it, especially when the Kommandant von Gross-Paris has to telephone me about it?’

‘That girl, Walter? Genevieve Beauchamp … That misguided teenager?’ tried Louis, a patriot to the last.

‘I’ll see what I can do but is it that you want me to have the boys in your neighbourhood arrested and their families?’

Instead of executing the girl? ‘Walter, we’ll solve this matter for you. We’re almost there and only need a little more time.’

‘Good. See that you do but don’t forget what I said about the Agence Vidocq.’

Again they shared a cigarette. Consulting others who must be working on blackout crime would be useless. There was simply too much hatred, too much jealousy. ‘Blitzkrieg is the only thing Walter understands at the moment, Hermann, what with Himmler and the rest of Berlin breathing fire down his back and Oberg no doubt fanning the flames.’

Oberg. ‘I’m waiting.’

‘ Ah, bon . While we were on the train home, Oberg sent Walter a note advising him to assign us to the Trinite and Drouant should attacks be committed there.’

As they damned well had been. ‘And when was that written and sent over?’

‘Time 1610 hours Thursday, but there’s something else. Gabrielle was taken to dinner last night by the Standartenfuhrer Langbehn. I think now, that in addition to wanting us to look out for her son should anything happen to her, Gabi may have been trying to warn us, but we didn’t have a chance to discuss anything.’

‘And now you tell me! We’re to take this Sonja Remer fully into our confidence so that she can report everything to this SS colonel?’

‘Who then …’

‘Uses Giselle, if found, in Oberg’s little souriciere ?’

‘Ostensibly to trap the very ones we’re after.’

‘And us, Louis. Us . Admit it. Oberg hates our guts and would like nothing better than to be rid of us but he can’t do that without Boemelburg’s help, and that one still needs us, so that one doesn’t quite know what’s up and has to go along with things anyway.’

Hermann always would grasp at straws, even that Walter would continue to back them. ‘Oberg must have known we were not only on that train but that Walter was planning to assign us to the investigation.’

‘That little Blitzmadel of his is one hell of a shot. Rudi wouldn’t have said so otherwise. Not Rudi. SS floodlights will make night into day in some stinking passage . That girl will be right behind us and guess who’ll come out of it smelling of roses?’

‘Informants, Hermann. Indics gave Oberg prior notification of the locations of those two attacks.’

‘The Agence Vidocq?’

‘We shall have to ask them.’

‘Oberg can’t have let the chief in on it, can he?’

And stubborn to the last. ‘We’re deliberately assigned to two assaults that give us examples of what’s been happening. Then later on in the evening are found because we are on Talbotte’s roster for the evening and fun is fun, so are sent to the academy for a further example.’

‘Only to then find that Giselle was to have been taken, Louis. She wasn’t to have gotten away.’

‘But ourselves conditioned to the severity of the problem and all too willing to go along with Oberg’s using her.’

‘Knowing that we couldn’t refuse, that an order was an order.’

‘Let’s go back through things. Let’s get it all straight if possible. The academy victim is taken at …’

‘You’re forgetting Lulu.’

‘ Ah, bon . Madame Catherine-Elizabeth de Brisac, whose hotel particulier overlooks Parc Monceau, loses her beloved terrier. The dog is held for a time that must be determined, but then has its scant remains hastily buried on Thursday afternoon at just before closing.’

‘The academy victim is then abducted at about 1930 hours, but we still don’t know from where. The Lido maybe.’

‘He escapes but briefly and is killed by 2030 or 2100 hours.’

‘Three assailants. His fingers, Louis. What did they do with them?’

‘The Seine most probably.’

‘Here, give me a drag and I’ll light us another. And at 2313 hours Elene Artur-it has to have been her-is forced to put in a call to the commissariat, having first tipped off Le Matin . The academy victim may or may not have been a pimp, but she most likely didn’t use one, and beyond those two phone calls there is, at present, only two connections with this earlier murder.’

‘The killers must have been known to each other, at least in part, and the one who wore the red ribbon was involved in both it and the Trinite assault. Earlier he took a taxi ride to size things up from the Cafe de la Paix, and then must have hurried to get to the police academy which implies he had an SP sticker and an allotment of petrol.’

‘Elene Artur must have been a distinct embarrassment Oberg could well have decided had best be removed, Louis.’

‘And where better to do it than in the judge’s flat.’

‘But with him finding her, not us.’

Such things were always done behind the scenes and the Intervention-Referat were very much a part of them. Hardened criminals but also men drawn from the ranks of the Milice now, and still others, especially here in Paris, from among the Parti Populaire Francais, the PPF of the fiery orator and would-be Hitler, Jacques Doriot.

‘But well before the rue La Boetie killing, Hermann, Madame Adrienne Guillaumet finishes teaching her night class at the Ecole Centrale.’

‘And is taken to the passage de la Trinite.’

‘Time 2145 to 2150 hours. No later.’

‘The Drouant attack then takes place at 2352.’

‘With plenty of time for the one with the gut to have got there from place de l’Opera but perhaps not enough beforehand for that one to have been involved in the academy killing.’

‘The break-in at Au Philateliste Savant is then committed at between 0020 and 0030 hours.’

‘But with insufficient time for the Drouant assailant to have got there from the restaurant. Not on a night like that, but plenty of time for the Trinite assailant, if needed.’

‘Mud from the sewers.’

‘Fish-oil margarine, but an ample supply from where, Hermann?’

‘The black market probably. In any case, none of the killings and assaults are thought to be related to the stamp robbery, and that’s probably why we weren’t suppose to have been assigned to it.’