J. Janes - Kaleidoscope

It was clear that Walter was worried but equally clear that he knew more than he was letting on. St-Cyr took out his pipe and tobacco pouch. A Gestapo, Walter was, and a Nazi too; but beneath it all and behind it, a cop and a damned good detective. One could not say otherwise when one had known and worked with him before the war.

Lighting up the furnace, he took several puffs, then waved out the match. ‘Perhaps, Walter, for completeness you might tell us why Abwehr Central and the famous Colonel Henri started to watch the Inspector Jean-Paul Delphane but did not jump him?’

‘Louis …?’ began Hermann, startled by the all-too-obvious challenge.

It was a tired Boemelburg who said, ‘Because I always suspected what Jean-Paul had done in Chamonix, Louis, and wanted us to take a closer look at him.’

‘So you tipped off the Abwehr, for whom he was then working, and they went after him.’ Paris these days … it never ceased to amaze!

‘And Bleicher suspected the truth but wanted the Gestapo to take care of things – Delphane was too well connected for their shining morals.’

‘But … but why did he go over to the other side?’ blurted Kohler. ‘The Resistance?’

Boemelburg turned back to the windows and the rain. Was it pissing like this in Berlin, he wondered, or snowing? The car was superb and he’d enjoy being driven around in it from time to time but for how long?

‘Even the Far Right are beginning to have second thoughts about us, Louis, but who can answer for a man like Jean-Paul? Perhaps he felt the end was near and thought that by switching sides he’d save himself.’

‘The war in Russia,’ muttered Hermann, ‘and the one in North Africa.’

‘Who knows?’ said Boemelburg. ‘The Right have always done what they felt was right for themselves.’

‘Walter, why not admit that you lost heavily in the Stavisky Affair and have been feeling badly ever since? Me, I am certain you must have …’

‘Some shares. A little venture – ah, it was nothing, Louis. Nothing. Merely the heating-and-ventilating firm I used to work for here in the old days. One can’t always be a cop. Someday one has to retire. Stavisky refloated the firm and I thought … Well, Paris, I’d had such good times here. I …’

St-Cyr tugged at Kohler’s sleeve. ‘Enjoy the Rolls, Walter, and the holiday, eh? Hermann and me, we must take a few days off to rest up.’

‘Then read that telex on my desk and enjoy your own holiday.’

Ah no … The thing was from Mueller, Gestapo HQ Berlin. It was all about someone code-named Salamander.

‘Find him, Louis, before he kills too many more. Hermann, you go with him. Lyon first, I think. Arson, Louis. A cinema-house and all the popcorn the two of you can eat!’

‘And the weaver and her daughter?’ bleated the Surete’s little Frog.

‘Besancon and the internment camp there for British citizens, Louis. It’s the best I can offer.’

‘But what about Christmas? What about …?’ Kohler saw the telex beneath the other one. He could not bring himself to pull it out. Apprehension rushed in on him. The boys? he asked. Gerda … his little Gerda?

‘She’s asking you for a divorce, Hermann,’ said St-Cyr, wishing he could cushion the blow to the ego. ‘Apparently your wife has found someone else.’

‘A Frenchman, Hermann,’ snorted the Chief. ‘A labourer on her father’s farm.’

‘Then I’m applying for compassionate leave, Sturmbannfuhrer. Please, you can’t cut me off like this. I’ll …’

Have nothing to go home to. All three of them knew this was what Hermann had been about to say.

‘Lyon,’ muttered St-Cyr. ‘We’ll pass through Vouvray, Walter. A short digression to restore the soul.’

‘Then see that you don’t take too long about it. This one’s slippery. Get to the cinema-house before the ashes are cold. Find the hand that did it.’