J. Janes - Tapestry

Kohler knew he had paled at the thought and had almost turned away, for this socialite who played at being a social worker was now smirking. Louis would have forced her to view the corpse from head to toe. Louis would have told her they weren’t just concerned with Madame Guillaumet but with Giselle who had been followed by those bastards she and her friend and their mothers had hired. He’d say, my partner is sick with worry about this Mademoiselle le Roy, moi-meme aussi since we haven’t yet been able to find her.

He’d make this ‘parasite’ tell him everything she could about Colonel Abelard Delaroche and company.

Somehow a cigarette was found, somehow lighted, but he was all but crying, this giant of a Kripo, thought Germaine. He was standing before her in this examining room with its pallets and drains and bottles of preserved organs and collection of fetuses in all stages and he didn’t know what to say, flung down that cigarette of his in disgust, was as quivering custard, the attendant puzzled, alarmed and looking back at them, having completely removed a shroud.

‘Her kids!’ blurted Herr Kohler. ‘Not only will they not have the father who gave their dear maman such a hard time and made her keep everything in the flat exactly as he wanted it kept, they won’t have the mother who understood them so well she made a special place for them anyway. A room of their very own.’

One must be calm, must have dignity in the face of such an outburst. ‘She was an officer’s wife, Inspector, was of that class and had a duty to live up to but wouldn’t listen when reminded.’

‘The top and the bottom of the heap, eh? That why the difference between her punishment and that of Marie-Leon Barrault?’

‘Yes. I … I believe so. Abelard … Colonel Delaroche is-was-an officer himself.’

‘And when Vivienne and your mother raised the issue of these delinquent wives?’

‘He offered a solution.

‘Correction: He suggested he could put together the necessary manpower since he was already using some of them and helping others. Grands mutiles and their daughters, shopkeepers who were former servicemen under him and with axes to grind.’

And prejudices-it was clear that this was meant, and all the rest of it, the need for collaboration, for France to take her rightful place in the new Europe, the need to blame those responsible for the Defeat and to ensure that only those who had actually fought in this one would be considered as true veterans.

Ashen, he bleated, ‘Are there still others who are involved?’

Merde, but one wanted to smile! ‘Other veterans, Inspector? Those perhaps who are among les egoutiers ?’

The municipal sewer workers …

It felt good to get the better of Herr Kohler, but perhaps the message should be reinforced. ‘Men you will find almost impossible to apprehend, Inspector. Oh, there aren’t that many, probably. Denise and myself really don’t know much about what’s been going on. Abelard has always been very close with his business dealings and keeps them even from Maman and Vivienne with whom we’ve talked a little about it, but … but these men, they are down there wading in the shit all the time, isn’t that so, and can come up anywhere they please.’

‘To rob a shop that sells used postage stamps and leave a wad of clay to silence an alarm?’

Had she startled him? ‘If necessary, I suppose, but why not ask Abelard yourself?’

This one was tougher than she looked and kept glancing past him to the body. ‘I will. How much are Vivienne and your mother paying that agency of his?’

Was Kohler too afraid to turn towards the corpse? ‘The work is by the piece. The more who are dealt with, the more the Agence Vidocq is paid.’

Was she really this cold? ‘But it’s gone far beyond your mother and Vivienne Rouget going through yours and Denise’s caseload files at home, hasn’t it? Others are now feeding that agency targets of their own, still others no doubt putting up the cash.’

Should she tell him that ten such men met regularly at the Cercle de l’Union Interaliee? A retired general with white hair and Petain moustache, other former military officers, Prefet Talbotte, two industrialists, one the owner of …

‘That colonel you worshipped as a child suddenly realized he was on to a good thing, didn’t he?’

She said nothing. She just stood there looking up at him, he still unable to turn towards the body. ‘Judge Rouget is among the backers, isn’t he? Come on, tell me, damn you!’

All right, she would, and derive satisfaction from doing so. ‘How better, Inspector, to hide from others that which you are still keeping, or were until recently?’

He’d best sigh as he said it, thought Kohler. ‘The wife of a POW herself. But why kill her in that flat of his unless paid to do so?’

The lift began its journey. There had been no sign of Concierge Louveau, no sign of anyone else in this former hotel particulier on the rue La Boetie, no other sound but that of the cage as it rose and the memory of saying, as they had crowded into the foyer, ‘Permit me, please, Monsieur le Juge , but I’d best go first.’ There hadn’t been room for all six of them.

Standartenfuhrer Langbehn stood to one side in the cage, the Fraulein Remer to the other. Had she no thought but to win her little piece of this war regardless of the cost to others? wondered St-Cyr. So little had been said in the car en route from the Tour d’Argent, one had to think the worst. She neither smiled nor frowned.

They passed the first floor. Merde, but these old lifts could take their time. They reached the second, Sonja Remer having never taken her gaze from him. A Mausefalle, Rudi had told them, une souriciere with Giselle le Roy as its bait. A narrow passage and SS floodlights suddenly coming on to help her target two honest detectives.

She would know that he and Hermann would have been told her version of the ‘attack’ as she had recounted it to Judge Rouget in front of the Butcher of Poland, would know, too, that they had had the boys’ version of the same, since the Sicherheitsdienst would have paid Rudi a visit to question him and his sister most thoroughly as to exactly how it was possible that this Blitz ’s handbag should have turned up at the restaurant.

In Deutsch, he said, ‘I understand, Fraulein, that your fiance was killed in Norway during the invasion. Please accept my condolences.’

Did this verfluchter Franzose think to engage her in conversation to soften her resolve? wondered Sonja. The Standartenfuhrer gave her the curtest of nods and she must do exactly as indicated, responding curtly as ordered but not in Deutsch . ‘Oui, mon Erich.’

Nothing else. The lift stopped, the cage door was opened by Langbehn who indicated the corridor.

The seals were all there, but Hermann had a system. Sometimes a hair would be placed across the crease between the door and the jamb and exactly two centimetres below the lowest hinge, sometimes a clot of household dust or pocket lint and with only a touch protruding, sometimes the tiniest bit of paper.

Never white or brightly coloured, this last was there but much, much closer to that hinge than it should have been.

Uncertain still of what to expect from this Kripo, Thibodeau indicated the corpse on its pallet in the morgue of the Hotel-Dieu.

She had been wearing a hospital gown, but such things must be in very short supply and she’d not have needed it in any case, had been beaten to hell. The left shoulder and wrist, Kohler knew, had been badly sprained but not broken. There’d been blood on her lips and chin when Louis had taken her from that taxi and this Kripo had had to carry her to the car, she having passed out.