‘It was all a misunderstanding, Obersturmfuhrer. Deiss and Paulus mistook me for someone else. I simply defended myself-you’d have done the same. Finally I was able to convince them to listen. Ach, they even apologized for the mistake, as I did too, of course.’
And trust Kohler to try to lie his way out of it! ‘Deiss believes that bookseller of yours was also involved in highly illegal activities. That is the reason-the very reason, let me tell you-why the Untersturmfuhrer Schrijen’s father had them follow her.’
And not his daughter Sophie, eh, which could only mean Deiss and Paulus had been bought off by Lowe Schrijen but then … why then they had let Meyer know of the men in Straf just to cover their own asses in case needed! ‘Look, at present my partner and I have to take things a step at a time. Berlin …’
He’d teach Kohler not to shoot good guard dogs but to execute N und Ns. ‘Berlin, Kohler? Berlin has insisted that the matter be settled. The men in Straf are to be given reinforced interrogations after which the Untersturmfuhrer Schrijen is to be allowed to take the body of his fiancee home. A corpse, I might add, Kohler, that Kommandant Rasche clings to for highly dubious reasons, even to sitting with her out at that carnival, thinking he was alone and not being watched by others.’
By Deiss and Paulus, but had Rasche been blind to their presence, or had he damned well known of it?
He’d known. He must have. Hence his call to Paris-Central.
‘A hearse has been arranged to take the body to the station, Kohler, at 1000 hours. We are to be the guard of honour at the funeral.’
‘You think of everything, Obersturmfuhrer. I’m sure the boy and his father and sister will be grateful.’
‘As will the Gauleiter Wagner, mein lieber Detektiv. The very one who personally requested that I form the guard, and who is to attend the funeral himself along with Colonel Rasche, of course. Kommandant Zill, Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer Kramer and Frau Kramer will also attend.’
Every seat taken and still no mention of Renee Ekkehard’s family. ‘When?’
‘The day after tomorrow.’
Friday, 12 February. Even a blizzard wouldn’t stop them.
‘In Strassburg Cathedral, Kohler. After which the body is to be cremated.’
With a tired but dismissive wave, Kohler left the bastard. It would be the longest walk ever to get to that car and Louis. Meyer was going to have them killed. Berlin must have ordered it. Eliminate Kohler and St-Cyr, get rid of the Bodicker woman. Silence them, but first find out what’s been going on. Once they got to the Schrijen Works, Meyer would soon pry answers from those boys in Straf. If not one, two would confess, or three. Not only had they planned to escape, they’d factored in the perfect assassination of the Gauleiter Wagner and all those who were to be with him. Nearby citizens too. Men, women and children.
Rasche would have to admit to having inadvertently assisted the Winterhilfswerk Committee; Lowe Schrijen to having harboured a daughter who was one of the Banditen, a resistante.
They’d all be taken to the quarry. Meyer hadn’t just brought the honour guard along for Renee Ekkehard’s funeral, he had brought enough men to take care of everything.
When Kohler reached the car and opened the door, he found his greatcoat neatly folded on the driver’s seat. No one said a thing. Alain Schrijen, sitting behind her, had a pistol jammed against the back of Victoria Bodicker’s head. ‘Louis, Meyer doesn’t know damn all yet but thinks that boy in the back needs a little help and is willing to go that far, even to giving him the task of making sure we follow them. Trouble is, what’s going to happen when he does find out?’
‘Hermann, just hand Herr Schrijen your gun and get in.’
‘Or he’ll blow her brains out and shatter the windscreen? Jesus, merde alors, mon vieux, hasn’t he realized we’re all he’s got? Can’t he see that if he kills Victoria, he has to kill us and then he and that father of his will have no one? The sister too? Not Deiss and Paulus, and certainly not Meyer or Kramer or the Kommandant Zill.’
‘Monsieur,’ said Louis, ‘those men in Straf were planning to escape on 6 March.’
‘The fete … ’ gasped Victoria, wincing as the muzzle of Alain’s pistol was pressed harder against the back of her head.
‘They’d stolen a cutthroat,’ said Kohler.
‘And had planned, I think, to cut his sister’s throat, mon vieux. You see, monsieur …’
‘It’s Untersturmfuhrer, damn you!’
‘Ach, one forgets the little things, doesn’t one, Hermann?’
‘Just tell him, Louis.’
One by one, on the road ahead, the floodlights were being extinguished as the SS prepared to leave. ‘You see, Untersturmfuhrer, Eugene Thomas was close to your sister. He had, I’m certain, become her trusted friend. She, in turn, genuinely wished to make his life easier and had gone so far as to let him read his mail before the censors in the office got at it. This had to have happened after hours, but Thomas often worked late, as did your sister. She by choice perhaps, he out of necessity, but also to avoid the cramped living quarters and close company of his fellow prisoners. At times he would go into your former office to discuss plans for the carnival with your sister, or some problem with the Works. More often, the two must have met in the laboratory where it was safest for them to have been seen together.’
‘Sophie couldn’t stand to have Eugene being hurt by the constant teasing,’ said Victoria, ‘and by a censor who wanted only to get back at us French, but if he read his mail-and please, I was not aware of this-didn’t the men of his combine know of it? Surely he must have told them?’
‘He couldn’t,’ said St-Cyr. ‘To protect her, he had to remain silent.’
Meyer would find that out too, thought Alain. ‘And with the cutthroat?’
‘Both your father and sister would be at the Works early on the morning of the sixth. For your father to do anything else would be out of character and out of the question.’
‘And from there, they would leave for the fete at about 0830 hours, Louis.’
‘Eugene Thomas must have known of this, Hermann, and had confided it to the others.’
‘The cutthroat was then stolen.’
‘By Thomas, Hermann. He was, I think, the only one who could have crossed to the firm’s garage to take it, having gauged when best to do so.’
‘But it had to be kept somewhere safe, otherwise Lagerfeldwebel Dorsche would have found it.’
‘And was hidden at the carnival until needed, Thomas no doubt hoping that it would stay there and not be used.’
‘But when he refused to go along with their killing Sophie,’ said Victoria, ‘they-’
‘Sentenced him to death,’ said Kohler.
‘Not realizing then that one of the Postzensuren might well have had him sent an anonymous letter, Hermann.’
‘But that’s only a part of what Meyer’s going to find out, isn’t it?’ He would turn to face Schrijen now, thought Kohler. He would try to get that gun from him. ‘Once Meyer gets at those boys in Straf, he’s going to discover that they knew what your sister and Renee Ekkehard and this one were really up to and that those boys also had plans of their own.’