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She’d a bow in hand, an arrow pointed at him, and a quiver on her back.

‘You took my keys,’ she said. ‘I’d like them back.’

‘Louis has them.’

‘What were Eugene and the others up to?’

‘There was a little carving …’

‘Of a chariot and Boudicca, its rider. It’s for the Wheel of Fortune which is to be mounted horizontally so that when spun, the chariot will go round and round until it stops and Boudicca points her spear at the winner. Martin Caroff, our assistant machinist, carved it. Martin liked Eugene. They all did. They couldn’t have been planning to kill him.’

She wasn’t going to appreciate it, but had best be told. ‘Maillotte said nothing further, Fraulein. He made sure of that.’

‘Raymond,’ she said with longing, the bow faltering as she bit back the tears. ‘He and Eugene were the very best of friends. They always got on and worked well together. He wouldn’t have killed Eugene. How could he have?’

She was desperate. ‘He did say the combine couldn’t decide who and how best to carry out the sentence.’

‘But … but you’ve just said …’

Again the bow and arrow faltered but only for a moment. ‘That was earlier, when he confessed.’

‘To Dorsche? Does the Lagerfeldwebel now know what they were planning?’

‘Ask him. Maybe he’ll tell you.’

‘I can’t. I mustn’t.’

He took a step, she cried out, ‘DON’T! Just … just stay where you are.’

‘Then give me a cigarette.’

‘I haven’t any. I don’t often use them and left mine at the house. Renee … Renee used to get them for me.’

‘From Werner Lutze?’

‘In fun she used to call him our acquirer which always pleased him, for he’s really quite shy. Junos, Lord Chesterfields … whatever was going, Herr Lutze would have some. He knew she was getting them for me or for Victoria, that she didn’t use them herself. Charcoal for the braziers we’ll use at the fete to warm the hands was no problem for him. Tallow and beeswax, also, for the ceremonial torches all such events must have at their openings. Prizes too. Teddy bears, china figurines, vases, artificial flowers, wine, of course, and schnapps. Lots of things. Donations, all of them.’

And the Karneval was still very much on, but whoever had sat in that field office of theirs beside that girl on that Sunday had dribbled cigarette ash and had tried to remove it. ‘Why not lower the bow? Arrows are no fun. My partner and I once had to deal with a crossbow and quickly found out what it was like.’

‘What were those men up to?’

‘Had they realized what you and the others were doing-isn’t that really what you desperately need to know?’

‘If Renee and Victoria were up to anything, I knew nothing of it.’

‘Taking things behind the wire? Buttons, bits of string, bread and cigarettes, carpenter’s nails …’

‘The packets out at the wagon.’

‘There are thirty or more of them, all in tidy little bundles.’

‘For prizes, Inspector. Prizes!’

And wouldn’t you know it! ‘Who suggested this?’

‘Gerard Leger. We were always finding lots of nails. There are far more bundles than you saw. They’re in with the rest of the papier-mache balls. Most of the nails were bent, but when cleaned and straightened, they were fine and perfectly acceptable.’

And weren’t nails as scarce as hen’s teeth in France too, and wasn’t that glazier a veteran of two wars and most probably the leader of that combine?

Shrapnel, sighed Kohler inwardly. Torches, charcoal fires, bundles of nails and utter chaos. ‘How close will the nails be to the Jeu de massacre?

Why did he need to know such a thing? ‘There’s to be a table with prizes between it and the Wheel of Fortune’s booth.’

‘And the braziers and torches?’

‘Why should it matter?’

‘Please just answer.’

‘There’s to be a brazier at each table, with torches at either side of each booth. If you’d not been so intent on stealing my keys, you would have seen the plans on my desk for the fete. There’ll be music too. Tambourines, drums and recorders, the musicians all in period costume. The Renaissance. Renee … Renee had a fabulous imagination and had planned it all. A jester, a troubadour, a magician and fortune-teller, a puppet show for the children.’

‘You three were moving deserters through to the Vosges.’

‘If Renee and Victoria were mixed up in anything so illegal as an act of terrorism, Inspector, and I very much doubt they would have been, I knew absolutely nothing of it. How could I have? Aren’t I busy enough? Didn’t I have to delegate virtually everything to them?’

‘Drugged … was that girl drugged before you hanged her?’

‘I didn’t! I could never have done something like that. Not to Renee, not to anyone. I wasn’t even there. I was busy at the Works!’

‘And on that Sunday?’

‘I was here with Father.’

‘And your brother, Fraulein?’

‘Alain? He was on duty at Natzweiler-Struthof. Didn’t Vati tell you that?’

‘It’s what he didn’t tell me that’s interesting.’

‘Did he send those two men after Victoria?’

‘I think so.’

‘Then may God be with her.’

Alone again, St-Cyr stood under clear moonlight. The Devil’s Saucer hung at a crazy tilt. The Tonneau de l’amour that Yvonne Lutze and her husband had explored was long, low and silent shy;. Behind it, and not seen from here, would be Dr. Bonnet’s Travelling Museum of Anatomy. Broken glass, she had said. Shattered jars, Werner Lutze having forced a way into it, she thinking only of formalin and a daughter who had begun a ‘preserving stage’ at the age of ten.

Merde, it gets to one, doesn’t it, this place,’ he muttered to himself.

Rasche and Lutze had gone back to town, to the house. Obviously the colonel had felt threatened when he had asked Paris for them. His office was being bugged; things could not have been right between him and Lowe Schrijen and those two detectives. Hermann was, of course, quite able to take care of himself but had always counted on backup from this partner of his. ‘And now?’ he had to ask. ‘Now Hermann could be gone from me, the frontier closed.’

An Antarctica of leather covered the Citroen’s front seat, the ignition was irresponsible, the engine recalcitrant. Again and again it refused to start. Had Lutze and the colonel made certain he would never leave the carnival, had someone else?

It started. It idled. It grew more confident and settled into a rhythm that was music to the ears, but the sigh he gave was caught in his throat.

There was someone behind him. As yet there was no sight of them in the rearview, only this feeling, this sixth sense that he wasn’t alone.

Deftly, silently, he found the cutthroat and held it at the ready. Still there was no sight or sound from this unwanted passenger. Perhaps they would think to wait until his hands were on the steering wheel and gear shift; perhaps if he turned off the engine …

Switching on the heater, its sound seemed more desperate than usual. ‘Mirage,’ he said. ‘Fraulein Bodicker, that scent Renee Ekkehard gave you haunts me.’

‘Have they really left?’ she asked of the colonel and Werner Lutze, the muffled quaver betraying her fear.

‘Gone,’ he said. ‘Why not come and sit up front?’

‘It’s best I don’t. Then, if necessary, I can hide on the floor.’

‘You came on skis from the bookshop?’

‘A cigarette … Have you got one?’

Putting the cutthroat away, he opened his coat. Suit and waistcoat pockets were dug into. ‘Emergency rations,’ he muttered. ‘Hermann and I always try to have a little something. Ah, bon, mademoiselle. The match, it is necessary.’

It flared, lighting up the interior, but she’d hidden herself well.

‘I didn’t even see those two detectives of the colonel’s,’ she said as the match went out. ‘Claudette was watching the street this afternoon because they had told her to, and when she saw their car racing up it, she knew they must have been coming for me. There’s a passage behind the courtyards. She and maman were always using it when they wanted things to be private. She … she said she would …’