More bread was brought to sop up the juices, his glass refilled from the stoneware jug, Hermann’s beer replenished, the woman making certain that everything was as it should be. Indeed, the busier she became, the less she betrayed that nervousness the colonel and her husband sensed only too well.
For dessert there was a tart whose filling was of preserved bilberries, eggs, cinnamon, slivered almonds, creme fraiche and honey, and whose sweet, short-crust pastry was of unsalted butter, white flour, sugar, salt and egg yolk. Pure heaven for a citizen from German-Occupied France.
Wedges of Munster cheese and real coffee, dark and absolutely exquisite, finished the repast, Rasche thrusting his tobacco pouch across the table, Oberfeldwebel Lutze having found himself a cigarette.
‘These suicides, gentlemen,’ said Rasche, taking a moment to draw on that pipe of his and get the fire going. ‘There were two of them. The first was a week ago yesterday, but she wasn’t discovered until last Tuesday.’
‘Sunday, then, 31 January,’ said Louis as he packed his pipe, ‘but not found until 2 February. Why the delay, Colonel?’
Paris had said that St-Cyr was known to fuss over every detail, Kohler tending to jump to conclusions until cautioned by his other half.
‘She went missing. We believed she had gone to Strassburg. The girl had some leave coming and understandably we thought she had taken it.’
‘We?’ asked Louis.
‘My adjutant and myself, but also the officer who keeps the duty roster at the Polizeikommandantur. She was a secretary. Well, actually, gentlemen, she was my secretary.’
And now here it comes, swore Kohler silently.
‘Name?’ asked Louis.
‘Renee Ekkehard.’
‘Age?’
‘Why should that matter, Inspector?’
‘It’s Chief Inspector, Colonel. Her age, please, just so that my partner and I hear it from yourself.’
‘Was I sexually intimate with her-is that what you think? Mein Gott, you two. We feed you like princes and then you … I’m a family man. My Hilde and I have been married for nearly forty-five years-no, it’s forty-seven this coming April, the ninth!’
‘Renee Ekkehard’s age, Colonel?’ asked Louis, unruffled.
‘And then you’ll get the rest of it-is this what you’re thinking? Well, is it?’
‘If necessary. Now, please, we’re here to help.’
‘Twenty-eight. She had family in Strassburg and had spoken of a need to go home for a visit. Some little matter. I … I didn’t ask. It was personal.’
And beware all those who shout the loudest about the sanctity of their marriage vows, thought Kohler. Frau Lutze hadn’t been able to stop herself from glancing sharply at the colonel as he’d ranted on about his Hilde, while Oberfeldwebel Lutze had given that wife of his a penetrating glance before turning away to concentrate on the quay as if he and his colonel were expecting company at any moment.
‘Hadn’t the Fraulein Ekkehard signed herself out for leave?’ asked Louis.
‘The girl had Sunday off but hadn’t returned from lunch on Saturday. Schmidt, the duty officer, felt she and I must have been called away on business and thought nothing of it. We often were, but not that afternoon.’
‘It was only when my husband noticed her skis were gone that we realized she must have left,’ said Yvonne earnestly. ‘We thought, a lodge in the hills, perhaps. We asked around-at least I did. One has to be so careful now. No one seemed to know until I-’
‘She was one of your boarders?’
‘I … I needed to know how many would be here for supper.’
And needed to be careful.
‘Until I went to see … ’
Rasche slid the school notebook in front of himself but kept a meaty hand pressed flat on it. ‘Yvonne went to see the Fraulein Bodicker at my insistence.’
‘Victoria Bodicker looks after the bookshop in her mother’s absence, Inspectors. For her not to have done was to have lost the shop.’
That being the law also in Occupied France. ‘And the mother?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘She’s in the internment camp at Vittel.’
In France! ‘And the school notebook?’ asked Hermann, the colonel then nodding curtly at Frau Lutze who ducked her head, fought for words and then finally confessed.
‘I took it. Victoria doesn’t know this, so please don’t tell her. Let me just put it back where I found it. She … she went into the shop to wait on a customer. I … ’ Again Frau Lutze glanced at Rasche for permission. ‘I found it in a drawer and thought Otto-the colonel-should see it.’
‘The Fraulein Bodicker told Yvonne that my secretary must have gone out to the Karneval to get a better idea of what was needed,’ said Rasche. ‘Look, it’s not usual for me to concern myself with such things, but there are always demands shy; these days and one handles them as best one can. The ladies of the Winterhilfswerk Committee felt they had to have something quite different this year if they were to raise substantially more than last year. Gauleiter Wagner can be very demanding and I … Well, when asked, I agreed to get them a little help.’
Wagner, Gauleiter of Baden and Alsace, was an absolute bastard. ‘A Karneval. A travelling fair?’ asked Louis.
‘Ach, the whole thing-rides, games, booths and sideshows-had been abandoned. The owner, the performers and operators simply didn’t come back from the Blitzkrieg’s Exodus.’
‘Who went with your secretary?’ asked Louis, reaching across the table to try to do the impossible and get the notebook away from beneath that hand.
‘No one. The little fool went alone. Renee was Alsatian. She belonged here. She … she didn’t think!’
‘On Saturday afternoon, 30 January.’
‘Listen, damn you, she had no reason to kill herself!’
‘Otto, please … ’ began Yvonne.
‘But someone had?’ persisted Louis. ‘It’s either the one or the other, Colonel.’
‘And that is why you’re here at my request. Mine, you understand. Everything is as it was. I’ve a detail on guard. No one, unless authorized by myself, goes into that Karneval or comes out. The men are billeted in a nearby farmhouse.’
‘Dogs?’ asked Hermann.
‘Of course.’
‘And the corpse?’ asked Louis.
‘I had her cut down and covered.’
‘Left exactly as lowered?’
One had best sigh heavily at this Surete’s penchant for detail. ‘She’s in a pine box, Chief Inspector. It’s cold enough, is it not, for her to keep and at the moment, far more secure than any morgue.’
‘Autopsy?’
Verdammt! ‘None. We don’t normally do such things in cases like this.’
‘Do so.’
Must St-Cyr make a nuisance of himself and Kohler let him? ‘I’d rather you both took a look at her first. It’s not that a coroner can’t be produced-mein Gott, they’re performing autopsies all the time at that university in Strassburg. It’s … it’s just that I would prefer not to submit a request until you’re absolutely certain one is necessary.’
‘He doesn’t want to have to go through the Konzentrationslager’s office at Natzweiler-Struthof, Louis.’
Kohler would snort at it! ‘Our Arbeitslagern are all under that umbrella, yes. Kommandant Zill is often away, the Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer Kramer … ’
‘The one who keeps order, Louis. The one who does the head counts and takes care of everything else.’
‘Until June of last year, Kramer was acting Kommandant of Natzweiler-Struthof but please don’t think his being passed over by Zill will have upset him in the slightest. Men like Kramer are career officers in the SS and familiar with every aspect of such camps, having served in them, in his case, since 1934. Dachau, Buchenwald or Sachsenhausen, I’m not sure at which of them he cut his teeth, but believe me, gentlemen, cut them he did-’