J. Janes - Bellringer

And uh-oh again. ‘A warm brother, Colonel?’

‘That is putting it politely. Ein Arschficker, Kohler. I’m certain of it.’

The thought to ask, ‘How certain?’ was there but had best be left. ‘And he comes and goes?’

This time a hand was tossed. ‘His kind are apparently harmless, though we shall see.’

‘But are there others who come and go?’

The eyes were lowered to the cigarette, then took their time in lifting. ‘This latest death was not of an outside origin, Kohler. Women, cooped up together month by month and year by year, can be every bit as aggressive as men, if not more violent. My predecessor, if you can believe it, allowed them to discipline themselves and look where it has led. They are accustomed to being locked into their hotels each night, but are free to stay up and move about for as long as they wish, though only if the blackout drapes are tightly drawn.’

So as not to send a signal to the RAF, who might be passing overhead on their way to a bombing run in the Reich. ‘Those stovepipes, Colonel. . ’

‘Certainly they have had their little fires, or so I have been told, but someone always smells the smoke or sees the flames.’

‘And are they allowed to visit from hotel to hotel?’

Had Kohler come upon something already? ‘Only during the day unless permission has been granted, as on last Christmas night, when the British entertained the Americans.’

‘And no nighttime sleepovers?’

‘ Liebe Zeit! If they should choose to stay to pursue such filthy practices, that is currently their concern, though we shall soon be putting a stop to it and they have little time to spare for such activities during the day.’

‘Chores keep them busy?’

‘There is no daily Appell as yet, though that is going to change.’

No lining up at dawn and counting of heads.

‘They have to queue up for bread, soup, their parcels and mail, Kohler. Hauling water or firewood, doing their laundry-all such things keep them occupied, but the question you must ask and answer quickly for me, is will there be another murder or suicide?’

And uh-oh yet again. ‘Not if my partner and I can help it.’

The cigarette’s little life was abruptly ended.

‘Not if you can help it, mein Lieber . I’ve arranged for you to stay in the hospital. Four of the doctors there are French, as are the nursing sisters, but the one who is in charge of those is English, and there is another doctor-a Scotsman best left alone. I can’t make apologies for their presence. That is how I found things. The patients go to them, in any case. Dr. Schlieffen oversees and looks after us, but has his surgery and rooms in one of the other villas.’

‘We’d prefer to live in town, Colonel. A bed-sitter.’

And defiance already? ‘That is not possible. Transport simply isn’t available. You are on call at all times and will take your meals with us in the canteen, and you will not discuss the war with the internees or with those damned doctors and nurses. To all such enquiries-and there will be many-you will simply say, Verboten . For them, they are here to enjoy the safety and goodwill the Führer provides and that is all there is to it.’

Day to day, hour by hour, and with no news of when their little stay might end.

‘As soon as you have settled the two who have died, they will be buried side by side but not in this park, am I understood?’

‘Definitely.’ And wasn’t this one just their luck? A real Mitläufer, a fellow traveller of the Nazis, if not a dyed-in-the-wool Eingefleischter, the hypnotized. ‘My partner and I will do what we can, Colonel.’

‘Correction. You will do as you’ve been ordered. Now, I really must get on with things. Supper is at 1830 hours-no later, no earlier-and it will not be dragged out as the French invariably do with their meals.’

Louis definitely wasn’t going to like that, either. ‘And the first victim, Colonel? Where might we find her?’

‘At the bottom of one of the elevator shafts in that hotel of theirs. Don’t ask me how she got there or why that verdammte gate was open. That is for you to find out.’

It fluttered down, and as they looked up from the foyer of the Hôtel Vittel-Palace, the brassiere, the tiniest thing possible, floated lazily in some up-draught, only to trail one strap as it finally took the plunge.

The railing, three storeys above, was now completely clear of laundry, as were the staircase railings on either side of it. Trapped, the makeshift garment lay on the Art-Deco mosaic of the marble floor at their feet, where Neptune, in all his glory, was being enticed by golden-haired mermaids to take the waters.

‘Hermann, allow me.’

Two lace-trimmed handkerchiefs had been refashioned. Repeated gentle washing, with water of stewed ivy leaves and then that of pine needles, had given it a scent both halfway between and all its own. The straps, however, were of cotton scavenged from a shirt-blouse. Instead of the usual clasp, a safety pin would have been used but such a valuable item had absented itself either through need or safekeeping.

There wasn’t a sound, and how was it that nine hundred and whatever people could make themselves so scarce that not a one of them could be seen or heard? Had they climbed to attic garrets, gone into the cellars, or both? And if so, who had such a power over them that one’s orders were completely obeyed?

Carefully folding the garment in half, Louis started out, their overboots left just inside the door as a sign of trust, perhaps, and a gamble at that.

Room 3-38 was no different from the others they had been able to glance into as they’d passed by open doors. It, too, was devoid of occupants but otherwise crowded.

‘Hermann, a moment.’

Ach, the cinematographer!

‘You start from the left, I from the right,” said St-Cyr. ‘Give the room the careful once-over.’

Commit the ‘film’ of it to memory, then make the traverse in reverse. Photos, cutouts, maps, and such covered whatever wall space had been free. There was a lacrosse stick, two tennis rackets, an American football, quite worn and obviously used by male hands and boots, but. . ‘ Mein Gott, the room’s tidy. What more do we need?’

That, too, could not be allowed to pass. ‘What did the years in Munich and Berlin teach you? To concentrate only on the obvious and ignore the significant?’

‘Temper, temper. Don’t let all those missing girls unsettle you.’

‘ Ah, mon Dieu, is it not evident I want us to use the opportunity they have unwittingly provided? It’s curious, isn’t it, that only one of the occupants was sitting on her bed just prior to their leaving?’

The beds were ex-French Army portable iron cots with straw mattresses, and there was a dent in the one Louis had noted. A game of solitaire had been in progress there, the cards laid out with a precision that defied reason.

‘An evident reason, Hermann, for this one couldn’t have been watching at any of the windows in use, could she?’

Since the windows here wouldn’t overlook those sections of the park they’d had to cross. ‘These ones face north and northeast.’

‘ Ah, bon, Inspector. You’ve already learned something significant.’

‘And since she once played lacrosse, no one, and I mean no one, has dared to cut away any of that stick’s leather webbing no matter the need, or to borrow the hard rubber ball that is nestled in its crotch.’

Two of the beds, one on either side of the door, were against that innermost wall. End to end, sets of two others occupied opposing walls, the area immediately in front of the floor-to-ceiling French windows being left as a sort of common space, replete with three fold-up, portable wooden-slatted café chairs and an upturned half-barrel as a table and reminder of what they’d once been allowed to partake of with pleasure.