‘And Sophie?’ asked Herr Kohler.
‘Was keeping her distance.’
‘And then?’ asked Louis gently.
‘There it was. I went through it page by page. Someone had written the formula for trinitrophenol under the equations. Raymond … I was certain it must have been Raymond Maillotte.’
‘And a warning to our second victim to cooperate with his combine or else, Louis, but did Lowe Schrijen then get another look at it?’
‘He … he might have,’ said Victoria. ‘I … I really don’t know, nor why Sophie couldn’t have simply asked me for it herself that second time.’
She hadn’t because her father had asked her for it again, said Kohler silently, and Renee Ekkehard must have inadvertently let Rasche know of the interest. ‘Mademoiselle, I think you know very well why Sophie didn’t.’
Raymond and a highly unstable and very violent explosive-she would have to tell them, thought Victoria, since St-Cyr had gone through Renee’s bedroom with her. ‘In her haste to join the other students in Clermont-Ferrand before the Blitzkrieg of 1940, Genevieve Lutze left some of her chemistry textbooks behind. One of them gave me the formulas. Renee …’
‘Was the Mademoiselle Ekkehard with you at the time?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘It would not have mattered, not in the state she was. Outside of her room, Renee could barely control her despair, alone with Sophie or myself, or both of us, she invariably broke down.’
And Yvonne Lutze must have known of it, and of the formulas, thought St-Cyr.
‘Wasn’t Sophie keeping her distance by then?’ asked Hermann.
‘She was. She would, in any case, have thought of it only as a dye stuff, but what, please, were Martin and Gerard and the others planning? To escape? If so, then why would they have condemned Eugene to death?’
‘That’s something we’ve yet to answer,’ muttered Herr Kohler, ‘but if what you say is true, Colonel Rasche must have learned of Lowe Schrijen’s interest and decided that he had better have another look at that notebook himself, and when Yvonne Lutze got it for him, he tore the corner off that page and left it for us. I might have known, Louis!’
‘Our second victim, Hermann. Hanged with full pockets and a fisherman’s knot!’
South of Selestat, and now within twenty kilometres of Kolmar, the snowfall suddenly ceased. One minute it was there and comforting, felt Victoria, the next it had vanished and with it all thought of the freedom that must someday come. On the road ahead the snow was rutted, hard-packed and had been glazed over by earlier traffic. Herr Kohler was driving, his greatcoat still wrapped about her, and it was warm and kind of him, but St-Cyr was constantly nervous. Every time the car skidded, he flinched, she did too, there really being very little room to spare and she keeping herself as far from Herr Kohler as possible for fear of breaking one of the ampoules. Every time the car speeded up, the chief inspector would suck in an impatient breath at such a terrible driver, yet still his inquisition of her hadn’t let up.
‘This fete, mademoiselle,’ he asked. ‘Were any of those men who helped the three of you to have run the booths?’
Model prisoners were always considered useful by the Nazis as examples to others, especially visiting delegates from the Red Cross and other organizations. Seldom, if ever, though, were Arbeitslagern visited by them, in part because the numbers of men were much greater in the other camps. ‘Sophie did ask Colonel Rasche if he would allow such a thing, but he flatly refused. “The security alone would be far too tight,” he said, “with the Gauleiter Wagner officiating at the opening.”’
‘And with Lowe Schrijen there too, Louis, and himself.’
‘And Kommandant Zill, Hermann, and the Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer Kramer.’
‘One happy little gathering,’ said Herr Kohler, speeding up again as they entered the Foret de Colmar, the Kolmarwald.
She had best tell them something, felt Victoria, so as to give the lie of cooperating while holding back what couldn’t be revealed. ‘The fete is to be held in what we used to call place de la Cathedrale. Since the Polizeikommandantur is right there, and it would be good for relations with the public, the colonel was going to let some of the staff help out.’
‘Diess and Paulus?’ asked Herr Kohler sharply.
‘Why, yes, their … their names were on the list he had drawn up. The Gauleiter Wagner and Herr Schrijen are to light the ceremonial torches and then he and Herr Schrijen and the colonel are to have a game of Jeu de massacre, after which they will spin the Wheel of Fortune.’
‘As will Zill and Kramer, Louis. Those torches, mademoiselle. Have they already been made?’
‘Gerard …’
Softly he swore, but did not slow the car, simply said, ‘Verglas, Louis.’
Black ice lay beneath the snow, the tree trunks dark and crowding closely. If they went off the road, could she try to get away long enough to … ‘Gerard and … and Raymond looked after those,’ she said. ‘Beeswax and tallow Herr Lutze found for us; dried rushes and sticks they had gathered in the Kastenwald and had tied into bundles with vine-cuttings Sophie had brought from the Schrijen vineyards. The torches are almost the length of the wagon they are stored in.’
‘And behind them, Louis, pyramids of papier-mache balls.’
‘Why, yes, and … and charcoal braziers at which to warm the hands before throwing them.’
‘They thought of everything, didn’t they, Louis? Packets of nails as prizes. Lots of them. Teddy bears too, and bottles of wine.’
‘And each packet tied with a bowstring knot, Hermann, some of them done by the colonel himself. It was perfect, wasn’t it? Mon Dieu, who would have suspected there would be any problem?’
‘Musicians, Louis. Tambourines.’
‘Recorders and drums,’ Victoria heard herself saying hollowly.
‘Everything that would be needed to distract them,’ said Herr Kohler, the car now skidding round and round, they holding on tightly and gasping as lights ahead were flung over the road, the branches of the trees now in shadow, now not.
A horse-drawn wagon had been hit by the first of the lorries; the second completing the destruction. Dead, one of the horses lay entangled in its harness, the other neighing in terror, poor thing, and trying to get up. Firewood logs, destined for Selestat, were scattered everywhere, the wagon now matchwood. Two of its wheels protruded from the edge of the forest, a third was propped against one of the lorries whose left front tyre was flat, and whose headlamps, bonnet and windscreen had been smashed. There were bandaged SS heads, a broken arm …
‘No one’s happy, Louis,’ said Herr Kohler, his gaze, like hers and the chief inspector’s, fixed on the wreckage. Perhaps two hundred metres separated them from the SS, perhaps a little more, the Citroen having miraculously turned to face them.
Caught in one of the floodlights, the driver of the wagon did not look well. Slumped against the back right tyre of the other lorry, he must have broken something too. A leg? she wondered. One of the SS trained a Schmeisser on him. Others had begun to clear the road but had stopped to take note of their arrival and to await further orders. Still others had gone into the forest to search for someone.
‘I’ll deal with it, Louis. Stay here and that’s an order.’
‘I’ll just get behind the wheel again.’
‘Don’t. The least little thing could set them off.’
He got out of the car, no coat, only a rumpled grey suit and that fedora of his to ward off the cold. He walked toward the horse that kept trying to get up and, though Schmeissers and Bergmanns and pistols were anxiously touched as he took out his own pistol, put an end to the misery, the shot crashing and rolling over them, St-Cyr sucking in a breath and still concentrating on his partner, willing him to remain safe? wondered Victoria.