St-Cyr had left to interview Victoria Bodicker. Kohler, having taken two thick slices of bread and some Munster, had gone to the Schrijen Works in the repainted, grey-green French Army Citroen front-wheel drive that had been found for them. What remained of their presence in this room was so little, their absence filled her with despair.
‘That notebook, Inspector. That page from which a corner had been …’
Downstairs, down, down their steepness, the front door opened, but she hadn’t heard anyone cross the catwalk, hadn’t heard a knock or the pull of the bell-chain. ‘Inspector … ?’ she managed from the foot of the stairs.
‘My tobacco pouch,’ said St-Cyr, affably gesturing an apology. ‘I seem to have forgotten it.’
Though empty.
4
Wehrmacht helmets soaked up sunlight in the eastern watchtower, while polished jackboots squeaked on hard-packed snow. Challenged at the gate, Kohler handed over the blanket pass and his papers, but Jakob Dorsche hadn’t come to meet him and that could only mean there had been trouble.
‘Einen Moment, bitte, Herr Hauptmann Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter,’ grunted the Feldwebel. No youngster, he had seen enough of the Russian front to be ever mindful of it.
The cranking of the field telephone came from the guardhouse. Most of the prisoners on the day shift had now been at work for hours but two lines of waiting details were under guard and probably replacement woodcutters though they carried shy; no axes or saws and only miserable bundles tied up with rags. They were Ostarbeiter, eastern labourers-Poles and Russians mainly and considered Untermenschen (subhuman) by the Nazis.
There had been thousands of Wehrmacht POWs in the camps to which he had been consigned during the rest of that other war. Though it had never been a picnic, and they had often been cold, hungry and definitely starved for female company, there had still been a camaraderie. But here? he had to ask. Here the men just looked gaunt, lonely, forgotten, badly frightened and entirely without hope.
Uncanny as it was, he did sense trouble. It had always been like this behind the wire. A look or gesture-intuitively there would be a collective understanding that serious trouble was afoot and this thought would permeate the camp like wildfire. ‘C’est une priorite, ein Grossfahdung,’ he sighed. A high-priority search. Dorsche was busy.
Had the Lagerfeldwebel been told to go through the French POWs’ things thoroughly before this Kripo got a chance to look at them? Had orders come from Lowe Schrijen via Lageroffizier Rudel, seeing as Rasche would most likely not have wanted it done?
When he returned, the Feldwebel was less than friendly. ‘Herr Kohler, you are to follow me.’
Three men sat in the panelled, memento-decorated office that faced east and was full of the winter’s sunlight-Schrijen shy;, Karl Rudel and one other. None of them were happy and all had been impatiently waiting for him, the coffee in their porcelain cups cooling, the plates of the sliced sweet and the savoury shy; Kugelhupf lonely on a side table where the latest news from the centre of the world was also laid out. The Berliner Tageblatt shy;, Zeitung shy;, Morgenpost and leading daily, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung shy;. Das Schwarze Korps too, the SS newspaper.
Lowe Schrijen did the talking.
‘Well, Kohler, it’s kind of you to pay us another visit, but now it’s time for a few answers. Was it murder, as my daughter stubbornly believes, or suicide as Karl, here, insists?’
The accent was very much of the Ober-Rhein, the Deutsch so fluent he must have used it all his life. ‘Both deaths, Herr Schrijen, or just the one who died but thirty or so steps from your office?’
‘Karl, you were right about him. A real smartass.’
Schrijen had kept his dark blue eyes impassively fixed on this delinquent Kripo. He may have been the son of the firm’s founder but nothing had been taken for granted. Having grown up under the Kaiser, Schrijen had seen things change hands at the close of 1918 and then swing back in 1940. A survivor, a realist who had held on to the family firm throughout, he would put its welfare first. The nose was prominent and fleshy, the round, cleanly shaven cheeks ruddy, the hair thin, grey-white and cut as short as peach fuzz, the brow sun- and wind-burnt. A man of the hills and vineyards? wondered Kohler. A good fifty-eight years of age and weighing probably in excess of 130 kilos in blue serge, he filled that chair of his like concrete, the hands big, the wrists thick. A square block with Nazi Party pin and the gut of a Munich brewmaster.
It would be best to apologize but prod him a little, for men like this didn’t fool around and had their own agendas. ‘Herr Generaldirektor, my partner and I regret that we haven’t yet been able to come to a firm conclusion about either victim. With cases of hanging it’s always difficult, but if the Lageroffizier Rudel has ordered Lagerfeldwebel Dorsche to do what I think he has, that can only hinder the investigation and prolong it.’
Liebe Zeit, Kohler had a tongue after all, thought Schrijen. A peace offering and-or-the threat of a long delay!
A nod so slight it wouldn’t normally have been noticed was given to the harried, greying individual in the black suit with matching tie and specs who immediately left the office, probably as quietly and unobtrusively as he’d come into it.
‘Herr Bremer is my chief accountant, Kohler, and especially at times like this, my right hand. Now, please, where were we?’
‘The suicides,’ prompted Rudel, the jet-black hair glistening with pomade and combed well back and to the left of that high forty-year-old brow the shrapnel had spared, the eyes dark brown and swift, the fingers long and thin. A Prussian aristocrat? wondered Kohler. Of a ‘good family’ anyway.
Schrijen took out a small cigar and paused to light it; Rudel found himself another cigarette and crossed his knees, having to pull the right leg over the other, causing this still standing Kripo, thought Kohler, to glance at the cane-an ice ax, mein Gott, that the bastard had to use when walking.
The dark blue pinstripe was Swiss and immaculately tailored, no uniform today, not even a wound badge.
‘Kohler,’ hazarded Schrijen, looking up from his desk, ‘Paris tells me you’re the realist, St-Cyr the patriotic dreamer. This Works of mine …’ He waved the cigar hand to indicate the constant source of the hydrogen sulphide and noise of shuttles, whistle blasts, log shredders and lorries that were doubtless perfume and music to him. ‘It can’t stop for a moment, can it? Not for anything. Had it been my Sophie, what would I have done, you’re wondering? Certainly the girl’s upset and understandably mistaken. Ach, who the hell would want to kill her? Fuhrerin der Frauenschaften, Direktorin der Gemeinschafts-verpflegung und der Winterhilfswerk. A tireless volunteer in addition to everything she has to do here to fill the shoes of a brother who is in the Services.’
The SS at Natzweiler-Struthof for the last of those, but Leader of the Women’s Auxiliaries of the Nazi Party for the other, the Red Cross catering service at the hospital too, and the Winter Help. A busy lady.
Rudel had, of course, heard it all before but had the decency to sympathetically nod, though he kept silent, waiting for his cue no doubt.
‘When my daughter came to me with her request for help with the Karneval, Kohler, I had the colonel in and asked if he would agree to free up a few of the men. A day, two days a week-we would find a way to cover their tasks here. Months they’ve been at it. Months, let me tell you. And now what is he saying? Not one but two murders when even his own detectives, having thoroughly examined both deaths, have concluded otherwise? Ach, against stupidity even the gods fight for nothing!’