J. Janes - Mayhem

As expected, Kohler gave him the name of a whore on the rue Mouffetard but said he’d see what he could do. ‘Want me to tell them to bring her back?’

‘No. No, just ask them to let her know I was worried.’

The call done, he climbed wearily to the bedrooms. A fallen neglige brought back its memories, a pair of briefs reminded him that older men and younger women don’t always mix.

Philippe had taken his favourite toy, a water pistol that had been made in Hamburg before the war. The gift of a German soldier in the street, or so his wife had said.

A German soldier.

‘Steiner, the Hauptmann Erich, age thirty-two, attached to the Ministry of Supply. Wife: Hilda, age twenty-eight; children: Johann, age four, Stephanie, age three, Hans, age two, and young Erich, age one month, two days. The wife and kids are at home in Regensburg.’

‘Anything else?’ demanded Kohler, pinching the last possible smoke from the butt before carefully grinding it out in the ashtray and saving the remaining tobacco.

‘Good-looking. A real ladies’ man. Been here since last August, arrived in all that heat – that’s when he first met her out walking in the Bois de Boulogne. She had the kid with her. Steiner used the boy as an intro – My son, your son, Frau …? Pictures from home and all that shit. She didn’t fall for it, not at first, not that one. It took him a month’s hard labour.’

‘Why wasn’t I notified?’ grumbled Kohler, more offended by the omission than by the infidelity of his partner’s wife. These days no one really knew everything the others knew, not even about oneself.

‘You didn’t ask,’ commented Glotz, of Countersubversion Special Unit X, the Watchers in charge of keeping tabs on the Surete Murder Squad, among other things.

‘So, okay. What’s the address?’ asked Kohler, feigning apology and a tiredness that was genuine. Crises, there were always crises these days.

Glotz reached for his coffee. ‘Hermann, I’d leave it for now, if I were you.’ Overweight and overstuffed, he blew on the mug before taking a sip.

Kohler spread his meaty hands on the counter. He hated shits like Glotz but acknowledged they were necessary. ‘My partner needs his wife. If he doesn’t get laid it puts him off his feed. Besides, my friend, I think the poor bugger really loves her. The Frogs …’ He sadly shook his head. ‘Come on, be a buddy. Don’t be so tight about it.’

‘You planning to kick down the door?’

‘Perhaps.’

The grin was wolfish. Glotz enoyed baiting Kohler. ‘A flat in one of those modern apartment buildings over by the Bois de Boulogne.’

The fashionable West End. ‘The address,’ breathed Kohler. It was nearly 3 a.m.

Glotz didn’t like the look. ‘Number 33, avenue Henri-Martin.’

Double the address number of St-Cyr’s house and double that of the clock!

The date of the murder also, and of St-Cyr’s birthday. Jesus Christ!

Kohler was impressed by the coincidence but didn’t believe in omens. ‘The apartment number?’ he asked quietly.

‘Thirteen. It’s on the third floor at the back. There’s a roof terrace. He likes to sunbathe.’

‘In this weather?’

Glotz grinned and shook his head. ‘In the heat and in the nude. The woman as well. Last October 11th to be precise.’

‘Thanks. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. He’s a nephew of von Schaumburg.’

‘He’s what ?’

‘I just thought you ought to know.’

Von Schaumburg’s nephew.

‘Leave it for a bit, Hermann. He’ll soon tire of the woman and she’ll have to go home to your buddy.’

‘He’s not my buddy. He’s my partner. That used to mean something to a man like me but you wouldn’t know about it.’

‘Perhaps not. I’m really a lawyer.’

‘I’ve always hated lawyers. They’re always so dishonest.’

‘I’d be careful what you say.’

‘Is that a threat?’

Glotz reached for his coffee. ‘Of course not, Hermann. It’s only a warning that the walls have ears.’

‘Then let the bastards listen!’

‘Louis, it’s me. Look, something’s come up. Try to get a bit of sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Is she safe?’

‘Yes, she’s safe.’

‘And the boy?’

‘With a nursemaid. Look, it’s okay. I’ve checked it all out. Now go to sleep.’

For a long time there was only silence from the other end of the line – a waste of several centimetres of Gestapo listening tape.

‘It’s that lieutenant, isn’t it? Steiner.’

‘Yes … Yes, his name is Steiner. Louis, I would have told you if I’d known. I would have tried to put a stop to it.’

‘Thanks. I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, anything on that you know what?’

‘No, there’s nothing to report on that.’

Still in his street clothes, St-Cyr lay in the dark on their bed, wrapped in three blankets and smoking the last of his tobacco ration. The purse had been of silk, very French, very femme fatale – from one of the fashion boutiques. The perfume had been someone’s very special concoction. Nothing mass produced. Not that scent. Ah no.

But from a silk purse, without knowing of its contents, and a single whiff of expensive perfume, can a humble French detective sketch not only the figure of the woman but also the rest? Her character, her likes and dislikes. The reasons why, perhaps, she had waited in the car on that lonely forest road while her maid had gone to fetch the purse and had killed the bearer of it?

Steiner was a power to be reckoned with. Only in thinking of the murder was there escape from the hard reality of what had happened.

The photographs were grainy. In an attempt to please, Barbizon’s photographer had made them a set of 25x20 blow-ups but these were streaked as if by specks of sand. Old photographic paper? wondered St-Cyr. Damp in any case, at some point in its career. Things were so hard to get these days. One bought on the black market or worked some other fiddle but one never really knew what one was getting.

In spite of the graininess – indeed, because of it – the boy’s features were etched more sharply. He looked beatific, saintly. Some mother’s son. The face was long and narrow, the mop of dark brown hair curly and careless or carefree. The cheekbones were hard and finely moulded, the mouth somewhat small, as was the chin. The nose was long and typically French, hawkish and of the upper class.

The deep brown eyes had clouded over but their expression was still one of surprise.

A small, brown mole marred the angelic left earlobe. Was twenty years not too young an estimate? In spite of the apparent youthfulness, there was hesitation.

St-Cyr couldn’t put his finger on the reason, but now felt the boy might possibly be a little older. Some men are always young – young at fifty even. At fifty-two their wives …

I’m not young-looking, he said. I’m shabby, tired and a whole lot of other things, and I mustn’t let her leaving interfere with my work.

Quickly he went through the photographs, pausing now only at the shot of him and Kohler grinning into the lens. The Bavarian’s arm was draped over his shoulder. The body was at their feet and the thing looked a little too much like they’d been out hunting and had bagged the poor bugger before breakfast.

Kohler should have been in vaudeville. One thick-soled shoe rested on a boulder. The conqueror and the conquered, working side by side. The Gestapo and the French Surete.

Setting the prints aside, he went through the negatives, flashing each up before the grimy window.

When he came to the last of them, St-Cyr resisted feeling ill and went back through them again.