Hermann loved horses and would normally have used the mare’s name but it wasn’t a time to quibble. ‘Just tell him we’re not going anywhere until I have what we need.’
Weber hadn’t come in force but could have and should have if he had been wanting to make a big show of things. Instead, there was the baksheesh-taking Oberfeldwebel whom Louis had encountered at the wood depot and one very recent, teenage recruit who had awkwardly slung his Mauser and, having taken the loud-hailer back, was now nervously manning the floodlight.
It was blinding, and a forearm had to be thrown up to shield the eyes.
‘WHERE IS SHE, KOHLER?’
Maybe fifteen metres still separated them. Shoulder-high mountains of furniture were on either side, Louis and the girl now well behind, Weber just inside the front entrance, the Oberfeldwebel to his right, but that Schmeisser and the stance spoke of the Russian Front and absolutely no desire to return to it.
Reinecke had been his name, and even from here the shrapnel scars below the helmet were clear enough. Louis and the girl would be caught in the crossfire-was that really what Weber wanted, having drawn his Polizei Pistole? Dead they could give no answers and Berlin-Central wouldn’t give a damn. Indeed, they’d be pleased, and Weber must know it too.
‘Kohler. . ’
‘Ach, there’s no problem, Untersturmführer. The little imp is with my partner.’
‘That slut is wanted, Kohler. Wanted!’
To duck would not be wise. ‘Liebe Zeit, Untersturmführer, admit that we saved you a hell of a lot of trouble. Those woods are probably infested with partisans who would only have welcomed her and smeared egg on your face in Berlin.’
Kohler still hadn’t moved. Beyond him, behind the front desk, St-Cyr and the girl were hurriedly searching for something. ‘Komm’ here, Kohler. Now!’
A grin would be best. ‘I’ve twisted an ankle. You’ll have to be patient.’
‘Your gun, then. Toss it out.’
Weber would shoot Louis first-was that it? ‘Ach, my hands are full. Look, there’s really no problem.’
‘Where did she get that ax you’re holding?’
‘This? It’s a leftover from that other war and branded right on its handle. Probably the ax was rusty as hell when she found it but it’s been beautifully cleaned and is as sharp as a razor.’
‘That monk. . He threw it over the wire to her, or one of the blacks sold it to her.’
Weber couldn’t have discovered that his safe had been broken into, or maybe he had and that was why he’d brought so few with him. ‘We’ll have to ask the brother and those boys, Untersturmführer, but didn’t you tell me you knew everything that was going on around this camp? Who was meeting who and where and why, and who would be attending that séance on the night of the thirteenth and where they’d go afterwards before they climbed that staircase. A bell ringer. . wasn’t that what Colonel Kessler said over the telephone to the Kommandant von Gross-Paris? You did listen in, didn’t you?’
‘IT WAS A SUICIDE, KOHLER. A SELF-MURDER!’
‘You knew Nora Arnarson and Mary-Lynn Allan would be attending that séance with Colonel Kessler and you knew you had to pin something substantial on him. What better than the suicide of the young woman he’d made pregnant?’
‘She jumped, Kohler. He drove her to it, and that is among the charges Berlin-Central will be presenting at his court-martial.’
Louis had best be ready. ‘Then the key to that padlock must have been stolen from that board on the wall behind your desk.’
‘STOLEN RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY VERY EYES?’
‘If not, Untersturmführer, then who the hell opened it other than you?’
Weber and the others were coming for her, thought Nora, panicking. Herr Kohler hadn’t been able to stall them any longer. There was now no hope unless she could make a run for it, but how? Boxed in, she and the chief inspector were behind walls and walls, having gone beyond the front desk through crowded office after office frantically searching until, at last and on the floor at their feet, the beam of his light had settled on two dusty registers.
The fake marbling of their heavy covers sickened her but not just because of the time needed to look through them. Someone had stolen the leather jackets such books would always have. Shoe repairs? she wondered. Boots, gloves. . would it really matter why the Senegalese had stripped them off or that they would have even been under guard? They’d been doing all the heavy labour and would have carried the registers in.
‘There are strongboxes, too, Inspector.’
The registers had been on top of them, and both of the two boxes had been broken into.
‘Ah, merde,’ swore St-Cyr, dismayed by the thought. ‘The house detectives,’ and flinging up the lid of each, he found the empty holsters that should have held two of the Lebel Modèle d’ordonnance 1873s just like his own.
‘Say nothing of this, mademoiselle. Nothing, do you understand?’
Nora knew she had to nod but that his mind must be in a turmoil, for if the Senegalese had stolen them, and they must have, it could only have been for one reason.
The register he handed her was thick and heavy. There were pages and pages of names, dates, room numbers, signatures, amounts paid, and far too little time.
Shoulder-to-shoulder, they began.
‘Saturday 17 July, 1920,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Madame Élizabeth Chevreul, the Château de Mon Plaisir near Mortagne-au-Perche in Normandy.’
Nora had the Vittel-Palace’s register, he the Grand’s, he having set the flashlight between the two books so that it shone toward each of them and both would have as much light as possible. If worse came to worst, she knew he would douse the light, push her to the floor, and draw his weapon.
Built in 1899, the Vittel-Palace had opened in 1900 for the season on 1 June. Page after page had to be turned just to find the right year. Nora knew she couldn’t do it fast enough. Often pages stuck together, whole clumps of them. The dampness. . A gap. Page after page of nothing but empty spaces and blue lines. In 1915 the French Army had turned Vittel and its Parc Thermal into a huge hospital for their wounded. In July 1917, the first trains of American wounded had arrived, the French having decided to turn it over to them. By August 1918 there had been more than 1,300,000 doughboys in France.
Her heart sank. There was no Madame Chevreul, not in the Vittel-Palace’s register. Not that she could find in the weeks prior to 17 July, 1920, and right after it; nor was there in that of the Grand. She could have stayed in any other of the hotels in town.
Instead, there was a Mademoiselle Élizabeth Beacham who, having arrived on 1 July to “take the three-week cure,” and having paid fully for it, had stayed at the Grand in a suite of rooms on its top floor only to have left in a hurry on the morning of the eighteenth.
She had used her British passport.
‘Vernon, mademoiselle. A Laurence Vernon. Please hurry.’
Floodlight bathed the jumble of things that had been shoved and heaved aside nearest to a door that had somehow been hastily shut. Louis was in there with the girl. Louis. .
Had it all come down to this? wondered Kohler. The years of working together, him out here with Weber’s pistol at his back and the Oberfeldwebel about to let off a burst from that Schmeisser?
Nora could hear them clearly, as could the chief inspector whose hand had gently but firmly come to rest on her left shoulder, his flashlight having been extinguished.
‘Tell them to come out, Kohler!’ shrieked Weber.
‘So that you can have them shot for resisting arrest?’ yelled Kohler angrily.
A silence intruded, Nora’s heart hammering, the chief inspector catching a breath.