Otto Brandl … the Bureau Otto … ‘Is it that you know where the coins are hidden?’
Audit smiled briefly and she knew then that he would kill her if he could.
‘Brandl’s a personal friend. He hates the rue Lauriston, madame, hates Henri Lafont and Pierre Bonny because they intrude into business he considers his own. When two sides compete so fiercely, those caught in the middle must choose one or the other. He’ll help us. He’ll not hurt you. Not Otto.’
Audit dug into a pocket and held out a small notebook. ‘The number’s under the B,’ he said, urging her to take that thing from him. His hands were strong. There was dirt under the cracked nails. He’d grab her. He’d pull her to him. He’d force her to help him or hold her hostage.
Why hadn’t Hermann come back? Where was St-Cyr? Where was Madame Minou?
‘There is a telephone in the cafe and bal musette on the corner, madame. Here …’ Audit half stood up to drag a small change purse from a trouser pocket. ‘Go … go while there is still time. I’ll tell them you’ve gone to the toilet. Use the tradesmen’s exit. It’s better. Keep to the wall and then make your way carefully to the courtyard door and out on to the street.’
She had lost everything, the children, her husband, even the job as concierge at the house on the quai Jemmapes, her clothes, her papers – everything.
‘I didn’t kill her, madame. I, who should have known better, loved her deeply.’
It was a gamble, this last little confession, and when she timidly turned away from the mirror, Audit pushed the notebook out across the bed and then withdrew until he was standing. ‘No attempts to grab you, madame. I swear it.’
She snatched up the notebook and the purse and stood there quivering.
‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go now. Everything will be all right if you do exactly as I’ve said.’
The cellars beneath the hotel were damp and full of rubbish. Two strands of questionable electrical wire ran down into the darkness to wrap themselves about a broken insulator before taking off into the ink. The only lightbulb that Kohler could see had been recently smashed, a bad sign.
He nudged the door open more fully. One of the concierge’s felt slippers had become hooked on a nail. Oh-oh.
The rubbish was that of a pack-rat. Broken chairs, broken crockery, tables without one or even two legs. Peeling veneer, cracked chamber-pots and dried-up cans of paint.
It was quite a place, but he’d left Oona upstairs with Antoine Audit and he’d best go back for her. She’d be nervous, she’d be remembering the Ile Saint-Louis. She’d be thinking of how Christabelle Audit had died.
Water covered the floor. He could hear his shoes sucking at it with each lousy step. There’d been no sign of Lafont and Bonny, but one could never tell. Louis must be in a jam.
By feeling his way forward, Kohler followed the narrow channel that had been left in the refuse. There were stacks of damp newspapers, each with a brick or piece of iron to hold it down. It wasn’t fair of him to have left Oona alone with Audit. Louis would understand the need to go back.
Can’t see a thing, he said to himself. Drawing his gun, he found a match and struck it under a thumbnail. At once the cellars opened up with flickering shadows high on the orange-red brickwork of an arched roof above him. He had to stand in awe of it, had to breathe, ‘Jesus, a catacomb?’
Madame Minou’s other slipper drifted by, the felt strung with slime and hair.
Wine had once been stored here. The cobwebbed racks were piled against the walls. Empty bottles held the mould of age.
Kohler blew out the match and listened. Muttering ‘Louis?’ he suddenly had the feeling the place was very unhealthy.
A series of tunnels branched to the left and right and continued straight ahead. ‘Louis?’ he hazarded. ‘Louis … Louis … Louis?’ came the echoes.
‘Son of a bitch, don’t do this to me! We’ve got the killer upstairs in that room with Oona, idiot! I know it’s him.’
‘Him … Him … Him …’
She’d be terrified.
In time he came to another place where wine had once been stored, perhaps in Roman times. It was just beyond a turning and long before the match burned down he heard the muffled curse Louis gave from somewhere in the surrounding darkness.
‘Put that thing out and shut up, Hermann! Don’t be an idiot yourself! Ah, Mon Dieu …’
The sound of the shot boomed and rolled back and forth. Kohler cringed and tried to get out of its way. The slug pinged off the walls, smacked into an empty steel drum and then shattered several forgotten panes of glass.
Madame Minou sucked in a breath. A shrill voice leapt out of the darkness. ‘I DID NOT KILL HER, MESSIEURS!’
Louis’ urgent entreaty came from somewhere over to the right. ‘Imbecile, I know you didn’t! Come out of there at once. Give yourself up.’
‘NO!’ A volley of shots ruptured the darkness. The blubbering concierge pleaded with God for salvation.
And then tearfully, ‘Messieurs … Messieurs … In the Name of Jesus, I’m but a poor woman who is now soaked to the skin! The sewers, messieurs. They have flooded the cellars.’
Ignoring the whimpering, the assailant shouted antagonistically. ‘That one upstairs knew Roland, Inspector. Me, I saw them talking. Roland killed her. I swear he did!’
Kohler began to crawl forward through the flotsam. There was still no light. Louis … where was Louis?
Again the shrill voice came. ‘You attack a veteran, a man who faced death for his country, eh? A captain, my friends. Captains do exist! It’s that shit Corbet, that Major next to her who’s been talking, eh? Well, my fines, take this and this!’
The shots cannonaded through the caverns and the tunnels, echoing as he shouted, ‘ME, I CAN SHOOT BETTER THAN HIM!’
It had to be the Captain Dupuis of the one leg. Again Louis made an attempt. ‘Monsieur, please! I merely want to talk to you.’
‘Questions, eh? More questions. Then talk, you parasite! Suck at the blood of an innocent man. Give out a few more of your lousy sous, you cheapskate.’
‘Francs … I gave you one hundred francs.’
‘PISS OFF!’ Three shots came rapidly. ‘DON’T COUNT, MY FINE. I’VE TWO GUNS, OR HADN’T YOU NOTICED? I always have them. That saved my ass at Verdun and I’ve kept by the rule ever since. One for rats like you and the other one inside the tunic, eh, just in case you stir and need a little more!’
The tunnels must be endless. The water was cold and still ankle-deep. Had he missed a turning?
Kohler doubled back. The stench was pitiful. Gott im Himmel, was it safe to strike a match?
‘When … when did you last see Roland Minou talking to the one upstairs, that girl’s lover?’ hazarded Louis.
‘Lover?’ came the shrill accusation, but from where? That bastard? It’s men like him who take advantage of sweet young girls like that. I’ll show him. I’ll put one of these up against that forehead of his. He can laugh all he wants, my fines, but it’ll be the last laugh he gives!’
St-Cyr tried to ease his cramped legs. Madame Minou gave a yelp, then a pitiful entreaty. ‘Captain, you must stop the shooting! Roland did not kill her.’
‘You lying old sow. I’ve seen the way you leered at that little pigeon. A virgin for your son, eh? Well listen good, madame. That bastard son of yours has been in and out of this shit box of a hotel more times than you can count! He met that rapist of young girls in the Bistro Caban. That little shit of a hood told the industrialist exactly where things were at.’
‘What things … what things?’ Hermann … where was Hermann?
‘THE GIRL!’ shouted Dupuis, reloading the revolver. ‘The virgin, you bloodsuckers. Roland wanted her cherry, so he put the squeeze on the rapist!’