J. Janes - Tapestry

‘A speech, then, Judge. Begin, please, by telling me the names of all who had access to and the use of that flat of yours on the rue La Boetie. “Important people,” Concierge Louveau has stated. Former military men, the latest of which, some five weeks ago, was a retired general who … Ah, excusez-moi un moment , the notebook-so many items are collected on these investigations. Little things that are carelessly left behind. The red ribbon of a Legion d’honneur, Judge. Ah! here is the note I want.’

He’d give them a moment now to set their glasses down, as had the Fraulein Remer, whose regulation black leather handbag couldn’t help but be seen since it was on the table next to her left hand.

‘ “A general with the snow-white moustache and hair just like the Marechal Petain.” ’

‘I know nothing of this. Abelard …’

‘Judge, this is not a courtroom yet. Colonel Delaroche has a key to that flat, has he not?’

Had that idiot of a concierge actually told St-Cyr this or was he simply assuming it?

‘WELL?’

Elene’s keys could just as easily have been used, and St-Cyr must know this, but to admit that Abelard had one might be useful. ‘I let him use the flat as often as he wishes. Surely there is no harm in that?’

Rouget knitted those thick fingers of his together as if on the bench and condemning this Surete to bite the tongue while dangling by the neck. ‘Harm? Perhaps not, but first this general who enjoys cigars as much as you and the Standartenfuhrer.’

‘They all do!’ scoffed Langbehn. ‘Show me a general relaxing and I’ll show you a cigar smoker.’

‘Relaxing with an auburn-haired prostitute who was no older than the Fraulein Remer, Standartenfuhrer?’

‘A whore …’ breathed Vivienne Rouget. ‘Married, too, was she, to one who is absent and can do nothing whatsoever to stop her from debasing herself with another man?’

Madame Rouget had best be ignored to prod her into saying something else. ‘Judge, is it that you allow Colonel Delaroche to let former French army officers use that flat? Remember, please, that you’re a member of the Cercle de l‘Union Interaliee, as is the colonel.’

‘You leave the Interaliee out of this. Fail to do so and you will pay for it.’

‘But not with cash, eh, as this general and others paid the girls they used in that flat, yourself included?’

‘ Maudit salaud, must you rant on and on about my fucking that cunt. She was nothing but a bit of fun, a …’

‘Hercule, Hercule …’

‘Vivienne, ferme-la ! Don’t, and I will shut it for you. Denise …’

‘No, Judge. They’re to remain. Now answer, please, as you are required by law, if there is any law left in this nation of ours.’

‘ Salaud, of course I let Abelard use the flat, and others, too, of the Interaliee. It helps with the rent. Am I not free to do as I please with my own property?’

‘Inspector …’

‘Standartenfuhrer, this is a murder inquiry.’

The Fraulein Remer would kill St-Cyr and Kohler, and if not her, the Agence Vidocq. That had all been arranged. The matter of this one and his ‘partner’ would then be closed.

‘Very well, proceed.’

‘ Ah, bon . You see, Judge, two men were involved in the murder of Elene Artur. Just why they chose to kill her in that flat of yours, and not in some darkened passage , is another matter my partner and I will eventually get to, but for now, one of the assailants knew that flat of yours very well and took care of it even after what they had done. Perhaps he held her down, Madame Rouget, while the other raped her, slashed her breast and shoulder, for they’d torn her clothes from her, and then-and we are not certain yet which of them did this but now must think it the same person as committed a recent murder-cut her open and let her go so that she ran from them, trying desperately to hold her intestines in and …’

‘That is enough, Inspector!’

‘Judge, murder is murder, the details never pleasant. After all, she was a person you kept seeing, one to whom you paid at least two thousand francs a visit and who did things …’

‘Inspector, this really has gone far enough.’

‘It’s Chief Inspector, Standartenfuhrer, and before you start interfering again, pause to consider that my partner and myself were assigned to this matter by Gestapo Boemelburg and that the Kommandant von Gross-Paris ordered my partner to provide him with up-to-the-minute progress reports.’ This wasn’t exactly true, but what else could have been done in such circumstances? ‘Hermann will have taken care of this even as we speak. That’s why I sent him away. He will, of course, have placed our latest synopsis on the Kommandant’s desk so as to have it ready for him at 0700 hours. He’s an early riser, our Kommandant. We both know him well, Standartenfuhrer, and know, too, that he will tolerate absolutely no interference and that everything that is being done by us will and must be done to make the streets safe again.’

‘Even for those who would sell the use of themselves, Inspector?’

‘Vivienne …’

‘Hercule, that is the crux of this matter. Women who betray their husbands or fiancees who cannot, because of circumstance, carry out the punishment themselves but must hope and pray that others will see to it for them.’

The room was empty, the bed empty, the Hotel-Dieu in a crisis and short-staffed. In panic, Kohler ran his gaze over the stark sterility. The kids … her Henri and Louisette … Just how the hell was he to tell them their mother hadn’t made it? They’d hate him for the rest of their lives, would hate every last one of the Occupier no matter what.

‘Come on you,’ he demanded.

Green eyes rebelled. ‘I’m not going anywhere further with you.’

Grabbing her by the wrist, he yanked her after him, would go down the staircase three steps at a time, would catch her up as she tripped and had to pull off those high heels of hers, would make her follow and ruin those silk stockings, would teach her not to treat others the way she and Denise Rouget had. ‘I want answers, damn you,’ he called out as the stench of overworked drains, disinfectant and cold, no-soap, eau-de-Javelled laundry hit them.

Dimly lit, the Hotel-Dieu ’s morgue was in the cellars.

‘Monsieur …’

‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central. The body of Adrienne Guillaumet.’

‘Guillaumet …?’ muttered Martin Thibodeau, blinking to clear the eyes of much-needed sleep, not that this Kripo or the one that was with him would care in the slightest.

‘Thirty-two years old,’ said Germaine de Brisac. ‘Residence: 131 rue Saint-Dominique in Gros-Caillou. No wedding ring. That was stolen along with her handbag.’

‘ Merci, madame. Such information as you have so succinctly imparted is of inestimable value.’

A man of big words at a time like this!

‘Badly bruised,’ she went on.

‘That, too,’ clucked Thibodeau. He would toss the head, to indicate knowledge of the terrible injuries sustained. ‘She’s the one. We’ll soon find her.’

A drawer was pulled, and then another, the shrouds flicked to half-mast, an old man, a teenaged boy … a traffic accident? ‘Autopsy?’ asked Thibodeau. ‘Sometimes the doctors still do them, but with the suspension of all medical studies late last year and now the threat of the forced labour, the students have left for the hills and the maquis or gone into hiding elsewhere, or been sent into that same forced labour.’

The green-eyed one was startled by such an evident affront to the status quo but looking pale, the Gestapo about to regurgitate. ‘This way, please. I think they must have cut her open but let’s hope she’s been stitched.’