And one suicide, Vati? wondered Sophie, but he went on with, ‘Now another death for the colonel to explain in his weekly reports to Berlin and to Kommandant Zill at Natzweiler-Struthof, Kohler. So again I must ask, what were the men of that combine up to? Blood on your hand and yet no cut across its back or palm? Blood from Prisoner 220374’s mouth, I think.’
What had he coughed up, eh? snorted Kohler silently, and just what had Schrijen said to this daughter of his to make her so wary? ‘Blood and brains, Generaldirektor. I needed a moment to myself. That’s why I left Dorsche and went into the barracks block washhouse to clean myself up.’
‘Where there was a crowd of men.’
And so much for his having a moment to himself, thought Sophie. ‘Eugene and the others weren’t up to anything, Vati. If they had been, he would have told me.’
‘But took his own life instead, meine Liebe?’
‘He had no reason to.’
Mein Gott, but she could be tough when needed, felt Kohler, only to hear Schrijen ask, ‘Another of your associates, Sophie? Isn’t it true that you spent a lot of time in his company?’
‘I had to! Alain would have done the same had he not been away.’
‘Ach, that is so, of course. Before he volunteered to join the services, Kohler, my son kept in close consultation with the lab, myself also, as I still do. Always it is the lab that has to get things right before production commences.’
‘Raymond Maillotte was our fabric designer and test weaver, Vati. Where are we to find another? We’ve orders to fill well into next year. Where will we find another Eugene?’
Gut, the child had come through. ‘I’ll see to it. I’ll put in a call to Gauleiter Wagner who will understand and get on to Berlin for us. A sweep of the Gauleiter Saukel’s foreign workers. Somewhere we’ll find replacements. For now we have a little time, ten days until the current run is finished. By then they’ll be here.
‘Now, Kohler, since the colonel’s two detectives have yet to arrive on my doorstep, why not bring them in from the cold.’
‘They’re warm enough in your smokehouse, probably, but I’ll go and have a look if you like.’
‘You do that and I’ll build up the fire.’
**** ruthless, shows no mercy
***** the Green Maria, the equivalent of the Black Maria
8
Grey and congealed, its aroma repulsive to a palate far too sensitive even after two and a half years of Defeat, the glutinous mass of the Wehrmacht’s soup glistened in the lantern light but was waxy otherwise and hot like boiled synthetic rubber. The bread was just plain terrible. These two staples-could he call them that? wondered St-Cyr-had fed, and often did, the world’s largest and strongest army, but was it still that, the Americans having at last entered the war and the Russians having done the impossible at Stalingrad?
He didn’t know-how could he? Boiled onions were here in the stiffened pudding of the soup, salt in plenty, and far too much of it. ‘Colonel,’ he said dispassionately as he set the galvanized bucket aside, ‘why was that beret in her pocket and why, please, did you then put it on her thereby condemning her to an illegal act a coroner or undertaker would most certainly have noted and had to report?’
‘First, I didn’t know why she would have had it at all, a secretary of mine. Secondly, I removed it when we laid her out here. I wouldn’t have said a thing of it but …’
‘Only to put it on her after Eugene Thomas was killed?’
‘Verdammt, that one was murder too! Ach, I’ll admit that what I did was impulsive. I was angry. I was certain Alain Schrijen must have had something to do with her death but I couldn’t understand the chemist’s hanging. Mein Gott, why kill such a much-needed man? Lowe Schrijen was aware of how dependent on Thomas that daughter of his had become. I sat with Renee’s body in that other wagon for hours trying to sort it all out. It didn’t make sense.’
‘Admit it, please. You were afraid Lowe Schrijen and his son were about to point the finger at you for having let that Winterhilfswerk Committee have the freedom they had, but let’s also not forget Frau Lutze and your daughter were at terrible risk.’
Lowe must have told Kohler of them. ‘He’s a bastard, that man. Families like his always breed them. You’ve only to meet the son.’
‘Ah, bon, Colonel. Now, please, by putting the beret on her what did you hope to accomplish?’
Paris had said it would be step by step with St-Cyr. ‘I knew Lowe Schrijen would find a way in here to have a look at her, even though I had posted a guard.’
‘So you left a warning for him that you knew things weren’t right.’
‘Then called Paris. I had to have someone I could trust.’
‘But, Colonel, you had given Herr Schrijen ample time to have had a look at her before putting that beret on her?’
Paris had said this too, that St-Cyr and Kohler would lead one on. ‘Ach, the warning was for yourselves, and for this I apologize.’
‘Don’t try to avoid it, mein lieber Oberst. You knew we had a reputation and that this, if nothing else, would divert Herr Schrijen from yourself and your loved ones, especially if we could prove it really was murder and would then be stupid enough to point the finger at the guilty.’
‘Lowe Schrijen and that son of his.’
Now ask him again about the beret, Inspector, whispered Renee, though her coffin had been sealed in that other wagon. ‘Was she to have used that beret as a sign to others she hoped to meet, Colonel? Those personal columns that are spread before you. The Munchner Neueste Nachrichten?’
‘Yes, yes, Wednesday, 20 January. Das Rheingold und Die Walkure. Were they moving two of those bastards?’
Deserters. ‘What do you think?’
Did he have to hear it? ‘Guidance, verdammt!’
Now force him into a corner, Inspector, Renee seemed to whisper. ‘And on the following Wednesday, the twenty- shy;seventh, Colonel, you and the Fraulein …’
The big hands came together, the fingers tightly locking as Rasche took him in.
‘We were here. That girl … The Fraulein Ekkehard wanted me to stop in.’
‘“Stop,” Colonel? You were passing by, were you, from …’
Gott im Himmel, must St-Cyr persist? ‘All right, all right! She begged me to bring her out here. “For an hour,” she said. “There’s a little something I want you to see.” She was like a child, a girl I once knew.’
Yvonne Lutze, or her daughter Genevieve, Inspector? Ask him! demanded Renee only to be told, It’s not the moment. ‘The Jeu de massacre, Colonel?’
‘Those,’ grunted Rasche, indicating the buckets of papier-mache balls that had been recently made and others that had been found.
Oberfeldewebel Lutze, his Schmeisser slung, continued to tend the fire in the stove using scraps from the coffin. Rasche got up to reach across the table and take one of the balls that had yet to be painted. ‘How could she have hidden such a thing from me, Inspector? A girl I’d as much as adopted.’
In disgust, he crushed the ball in a fist and tossed it to Herr Lutze who dropped it into the stove. Dieu merci, there was no whoosh of flame but this did not mean there wouldn’t be with others that were, no doubt, hidden. ‘Colonel, tell me what happened on that afternoon.’
Paris had also said this one and that partner of his would keep a suspect talking by asking seemingly incidental questions. ‘I busied myself in here while Renee went out to open up the wagon in which those helpers of theirs had stored the game. When she called, asking me to bring a bucket of those things, she was happy-excited and jumping up and down. The butcher, the baker, schoolmaster, old maid, village policeman and priest had all been finished and those she had set out on their turnstile pedestals, their colours bright against the sunlit snow. “Now you first,” she said, and fool that I was, I enjoyed myself.’