Only when he had left, did Louis point out the impression inside each of the shoes. ‘Monnier, Hermann, the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore. Made to measure, but definitely not to hers.’
And taking a small, packed-down wad of newspaper from each of the toes, unfolded these and said, ‘Le Matin, but dating from 20 August of last year.’
‘And with a name like a Netherlander. A submarine?’
One without papers or with false ones.
‘And no suitcase, Louis. Either she never took it with her when she went to that van, or they must have taken it back, but in their haste, forgot the shoes.’
It was Joliot who said, ‘Both killed most probably between 1000 and 1600 or 1700 hours, Wednesday, 29 September. The one hit first on the forehead with this. There are even scraps of skin.’
Questions … It was a night for them, thought St-Cyr from behind the wheel of the van. Pitch-dark except for the regulation slits of the headlamps, it was taking forever to get to Paris. Basically they were sticking to the N2, but Hermann, in the Citroen which had no governor, would speed up only to realize he had gone too far and that the dim red twinkling of his taillights might be necessary on an otherwise empty road. And of course they were travelling through country that had been brutally fought over during the Great War, the Germans loving to shell things so much, Laon had all but been destroyed, Soissons’s thirteenth-century cathedral having had its nave cut in half and tower obliterated.
Villers-Cotterets, which they were now entering, had its all-but enclosing forest: oaks, beech and hornbeam but still, even seventy-five kilometres or so from Paris, there was virtually no sign of the Occupier, just an emptiness that made one feel as if the end of the Occupation had finally come. Bien sur, there would then be a bloodbath as during the Revolution, old scores being brutally settled, neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, former corporals against former sergeants who were not even of their own unit and had just come upon them abandoning their weapons. God having a bit of fun.
That bank had failed entirely to recover its van. Hours it had taken hunting for that girl, Hermann insisting that they keep on trying until Joliot had finally said, ‘Enough. That’s it, mes amis,’ and he and the two with him had returned to Laon with the victims who would eventually be sent on to Paris.
Rocheleau had not been dismissed, but given a warning. He was not to discuss what had happened with anyone, wife or not. Father Adrien the same.
And Anna-Marie Vermeulen? ‘Paris, 20 August of last year and a pair of shoes,’ he said as if she was with him. ‘Perhaps it is that you did have some prior knowledge of l’Abbaye de Vauclair, but why a handkerchief that would positively identify you if arrested, since that must have been why you tried to hide it?’
The lower slopes of the Chemin des Dames, the forest, path, ferns and spring all came to mind, the smell of the wet, autumn leaves, that of the water too, even its taste, and the sight of that broken fern and those trampled saplings.
‘You must have willingly gone back to that truck. The poultice, having come loose and fallen, either earlier or later, was put into the firebox and then later, when that was cleared in a hurry, removed from the ashes and dropped behind that wall. But to live as a diver in Paris couldn’t have been easy. Always there are snap controls. Even walking in the Jardin du Luxemburg or sitting with a “coffee” outside a cafe can lead to the same. The date on that newspaper gives us only a lesser limit to the length of your stay. Weeks, even months, could have been spent in Paris before you ever acquired those shoes. And you wouldn’t have bought them on the marche noir, since the price alone would have drawn attention to you. Instead, you either found them, which seems unlikely shy;, or were given them, and if so, by whom? A wealthy woman?
‘And since you had managed to remain free for such a time, why did you then suddenly decide to leave, only to return, and where, of course, did you actually go? Back to the Netherlands, as suggested by that handkerchief? There has to have been a very pressing reason.’
Anise might help, since the pipe or even cigarettes were simply unavailable, that need so great, it had simply refused to go away.
‘Anise de l’Abbaye de Flavigny, mademoiselle. Bonbons a la menthe shy;. Me, I will also chew a couple for yourself, though I’m not sure at all that you would have used tobacco since women don’t have the ration cards for it, and smoking does draw attention, especially since some men resent a woman’s having cigarettes they themselves haven’t. But, please, was the one who threw the contents of those pockets into the truck’s firebox a passeur? I ask because there are such, though also a fee: 10,000 in the autumn of 1940, now 100,000 or even 200,000, the half down, the other half when safely delivered, and if so, are those three-that passeur, his firebox feeder and the killer-now continuing to take you on to Paris so as to get paid the other half, since that passeur’s reputation would be at stake if he didn’t?’
Is there such a law? she seemed to ask.
‘Though many can, unfortunately, do otherwise and even turn you in for a much higher reward, this one wouldn’t because he definitely doesn’t want it known that they were involved in the killings.’
Again he thought of that empty road ahead. Again he spoke as if to her. ‘It’s as though the Occupier has suddenly left, mademoiselle. Russia is draining so many, the border between Belgium and France is now no longer being manned and one can drive straight through from Brussels to Paris. Certainly there may be the snap controls, and on the trains and in the railway stations there is always that, but did the Occupier have photos of you? Is that why you didn’t use the trains? Even in the Netherlands there are now areas so poorly manned one can apparently cross those without too much trouble, if one has something to ride, even a bicycle, of course.’
When she didn’t seem to want to reply, he took out the handkerchief to feel its softness and embroidery. ‘Your mother would have looked very carefully at this while at that age you would, I believe, have bravely awaited the verdict. Excellent, of course, but were you an only child, and where, please, in the Netherlands did you live? Paris suggests a big city since in those, despite all the dangers, it’s still much easier to live as a diver than in a little village or town where everyone notices what everyone else is up to and they all gossip. Oh for sure, some of Paris’s streets and districts are still that way. Until last winter, Hermann’s Giselle had regarded the Seine as a moat and had never been across it to the Right Bank. To her, the whole world was completely contained in the quartiers Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Sorbonne and Jardin des Plantes, with an occasional voyage a little to the south and west. She simply didn’t know of the rest or care and had closed her mind until offered a job she couldn’t refuse. The shop Enchantement on the place Vendome and two old friends of mine whom I haven’t seen in months and must. But Vermeulen is not a specifically Jewish name, yet those were often changed to erase the inevitable prejudice only to find that the Germans have lists and records going back at least five generations. France and Paris are suffering the same, so if you were one of those who managed to get away from the Netherlands, you would have had that extra burden, though Berlin would not have sent those two expressly for that reason, yet still you carry something that would identify you? Was it needed to identify you to that passeur or to someone else? We’ll help in any case, and I know my partner will be thinking the same.’
A diver, a Taucherin, an onderduiker? wondered Kohler. Longing for a cigarette, he felt for the megot tin only to tell himself he would have to write down the name of each of the butts used and, of course, he’d need Louis to roll the verdammt thing.