The other one, the older one who had the look of an accountant on trial for fraud, had watched with hatred and … yes, she had to say it, hope that the glass would be shoved into St-Cyr’s face.
The girl in the yellow dress had held her breath with excited anticipation. The battered one’s thigh had come closer so that now Oona could feel it pressed firmly against her own for comfort.
When he next spoke, the Surete’s detective was calm, and she had the idea he knew very well how to keep control in situations like this. ‘What did the contents of Charles Audit’s flat turn up?’
‘Nothing but a lot of stuffed birds and animals,’ answered the accountant, watching him darkly. ‘We had to burn the crap after we’d ripped it apart.’
St-Cyr ignored his former colleague. He’d stick to Lafont and try to get him angry again. ‘Where are Charles Audit and Rejean holed up?’
Again it was the accountant who answered. ‘We don’t know. They’ve gone to ground. When they surface, we’ll get them.’
‘How much did Schraum’s uncle have to advance on the thirty coins?’
Louis was playing it tough, but then he had always done so. ‘Five thousand marks. One hundred thousand new francs, but the girl would accept only old francs,’ said Bonny.
‘Which, of course, was illegal and subject to imprisonment, a fine and deportation to forced labour in the Reich,’ replied the Surete. ‘One hundred thousand new francs is 31250 old ones. That just goes to show you what devaluation will do, Hermann. But it’s still a tidy sum for two old residents of the Ile du Diable.’
Lafont grinned. The woman in yellow glanced repeatedly from one to the other of them, touching the crowns of her perfect teeth with the tip of her tongue.
‘Their retirement pensions,’ offered Kohler.
‘Or money with which to travel light,’ said his partner.
Lafont could not tolerate being ignored. ‘Rejean hates your guts, St-Cyr. Rot in hell. Bring us the coins and you can rot in heaven.’
‘Where’s Antoine Audit?’
‘Staying out of harm’s way.’
‘Collecting truffles?’
‘Perhaps. It is the season for them.’
St-Cyr leaned forward. ‘Then listen carefully, my fine. We have four killings. One which is separated from the others by two and a half years, eh? It is in this first killing that the answers lie.’
‘What killing? There was no other killing. You are crazy.’
Lafont glanced uncertainly at Bonny, who refused to take his gaze from St-Cyr.
‘What’s it all about, eh, Monsieur Henri?’ asked the Surete. ‘Coins for Goering or else the rue Lauriston suffers a reversal from which it can never recover? What did Victor Morande have to say before you cut his throat?’
The little eyes were livid, the sound of the laugh so out of place in a man like this that the battered girl cringed and wept.
‘Not even a charge of murder will stick on us today, Jean-Louis, so don’t get your ass in a knot. We didn’t kill him.’
This had come from the accountant.
‘Carbone did,’ seethed Lafont, working himself quickly into another rage. ‘That bastard Rejean is with him in this. I’ll tear his heart out. I’ll -’
St-Cyr let him have it. ‘They’ve got you just where they want you, eh? Rejean has never worked with anyone before. Charles Audit is his friend, idiot! The code of the Island is at work and nothing you or I can do will break it.’
‘Morande ratted on Rejean while he was in the Sante,’ snorted Pierre Bonny. ‘If you want the mackerel’s killer, Louis, find Rejean Tourmel and you’ve got him.’
‘The new owner of the carousel hires the ex-convict who fingered him in stir to run his pleasure machine?’ snorted Kohler right back at him. ‘Come on, my fine. You can do better than that.’
Hermann would never understand the logic of the French let alone that of the Corsicans, but for now it would be best not to enlighten him. ‘Those who search for gold, Hermann, search not for the truth unless they find it in the dross.’
‘Fuck your philosophizing, Louis,’ seethed the accountant. ‘We’ve come to renew our insurance policies and to take out others.’
The song had come to its end. ‘I never liked you, Pierre. As a chief inspector and divisional head you were always too highhanded. I don’t need you to tell me how to solve this little puzzle any more than I need your threats.’
‘Then look!’ hissed Lafont.
The girl, Giselle le Roy, burst into tears and shouted that she would not do it. Lafont told her that she would. Nicole de Rainvelle wet her hesitant lips, watching the girl and watching the others until Giselle finally stood up.
‘The table,’ ordered Lafont, a whisper through the hush as the audience awaited another song from the stage.
Reluctantly the girl stepped on to her chair and then up on to the table. The fur coat was unbuttoned. ‘Hermann … Hermann,’ she began.
Kohler reached out to her but Nicole de Rainvelle tugged at the coat and it slipped away to a rush of sucked-in breath, a chorus of gasps.
The spotlight left the stage to settle on them. The hush became a murmur, one of puzzlement and growing discontent, one of horror now but of lust, too, in broken laughter and whistles that were silenced swiftly by others.
A switch was to be made and Kohler knew it only too well. Oona Van der Lynn for Giselle de Roy. ‘Kid, I can’t do it,’ he said, reaching up to help her down. ‘You know nothing; she knows far too much.’
‘Then they will kill me, Hermann, unless you do exactly as they say, and they will kill that one up on the stage.’
‘Who did that to her, Jean-Louis? Who beat her with a belt so hard the welts will never be erased?’
The dressing-room, off the narrow corridor behind the stage, was very small, but they were alone.
‘Why can’t you answer me?’
The eyes were of that deep fullness of colour violets get when in the shade of new leaves. The hands were slender and pressed together on her lap so that the diamonds, the seed pearls and the chatoyant, shimmering blue of the sheath were as one and in prayer.
‘Gabi, listen to me. Lafont and Bonny are untouchable. The rue Lauriston holds -’
‘Such power they can tear a young girl’s buttocks and back to pieces and bruise her breasts like that, eh? Me, I have thought you better than to be afraid of such as they! We agreed, did we not, to do something together for France?’
The moisture of shame was in his eyes. He had to let her see it. ‘Please don’t say anything like that. Don’t even think it. You’re Russian, Gabrielle, an illegal emigre for all they care. You can go to dinner at Maxim’s, the Ritz or the Tour d’Argent with any or all the German generals you like, but none of them will stand in their way if Lafont and Bonny really want to kill you, because they are the Gestapo, they are the tools of the SS. Just give me time. Let me settle this in my own way.’
She tossed her hands, was through with him. ‘I can’t go with you and Kohler to Perigord. It’s impossible. Me, I refuse absolutely this “protection” you offer. I’ve too much else to do. Besides, there is the club to think of.’
‘And all the money you’re raking in, eh? Ah! forgive me. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘We hardly know each other. Perhaps it is best we don’t.’
‘Yes … yes, that would be best but they would never believe it.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We find the gold and we find out who did the killings.’
‘And then?’
‘We let them have the gold because that is all they really care about.’
‘And what if someone tries to stop you?’
‘We kill him, Gabi, or he kills us.’
‘And this gold?’ she asked hotly. ‘These louis d’or or whatever. Where are they hidden?’
‘That I wish I knew.’
‘To hide best is to expose the things you value most to view. Ah, don’t tell me you didn’t notice the furniture in that place of mine? A small fortune under heavy paint. Things bought for a song and kept because they are hidden so well and …’ the eyes were lowered, for he had the gaze of a saint at times like this,’ … and because I am content in knowing I have saved a few of them, the paintings also.’