Three days of it. The cologne she had hastily applied before arriving had the lightest of citrus blends and a bouquet of lavender and rosemary that was tres delicat et merveilleux. ‘That’s Guerlain’s Eau de Cologne Imperiale.’
Ah bon, she would say it with a faint, sad smile ‘A gift from my boss. He’s always finding such things for myself, and for others too, of course.’
‘And Deniard and Paquette were not called up in 1938 and ’39? Why was this, please?’
‘Are such not necessary to banks and those not necessary to wars?’
‘That is not the answer needed.’
The worm. Well all right then, Chief Inspector, let’s see how it turns! ‘Deniard had bad eyesight; Paquette the same.’
How understanding of Bolduc, but neither had worn glasses, though those could, perhaps, have been thrown into that gazo’s firebox with the pocket contents and somehow failed to turn up in the ashes. ‘And this van, mademoiselle, they had a lot of pickups, did they?’ Hermann was now perusing the photos on the wall behind the desk, having just sorted through some other files.
‘Oui, je pense …’ she began, but must this one seize every opportunity to distract her so as to let the other find out everything?
‘You knew, did you, exactly where those pickups were to be made and what was to be collected?’
Ah Sainte Mere! ‘Inspector, I did not say that they had lots of pickups for stuff to sell on the marche noir. Me, I don’t know anything about that business. How could I?’
‘But you did know they were up to something other than for the bank. You must have. You’ve been personal secretary here since 1934.’
‘Pour l’amour du ciel, I’m not his wife!’
Nor mistress, sad though that might well be. ‘But you do keep the wheels well oiled. You must. Now be so good as to write down the address of the bank’s garage and depot, and while you’re at it, the name or names of those in charge.’
‘And their addresses?’
Normally far from easily ruffled, felt St-Cyr, she had simply used that outburst to stop Hermann from looking at those photos too closely. Dropping those lovely eyes under Surete scrutiny, she swallowed tightly, deliberately touched the base of her throat, and took a deep breath before swiftly glancing up at Hermann who was again trying the desk drawers, but was she now wondering if he would demand the key or simply find the spare one she had hidden, just like the other one?
‘Now please, Inspectors, I must notify Monsieur Gregoire, who is the operations manager but does not live in this building.’
‘Like yourself?’ asked the Surete.
But could that readily be admitted if a little something else was added? ‘Oui, the bank has always provided me with a flat here. Chairman Bolduc, he often works late and I am always on call because it is necessary.’ A cosy little arrangement, was this what he was thinking? Well good, now she could hit him with it! ‘Madame Bolduc is my sister. Me, I am aunt to her two darlings, Didi and Yvonne, ages ten and twelve.’
Hermann looked as if he was about to choke, but there was a more important matter. ‘And your ex-husband, mademoiselle?’
Perhaps he should hear it since it wouldn’t hurt. ‘Sleeps in his coffin, thanks to the plane crash that took him from me in 1932. Me, I will telephone Monsieur Gregoire and instruct him to meet you at the garage, Inspector. He will know what is best. If he needs help, he can always call on one of the others.’
‘Are they all PPF?’ asked Hermann, leaning over the desk to give her glass a refill and touch the fingers that were still holding it.
Her look must be one of cold appraisal, felt Yvonne, for he had the definite appearance and touch of a womanizer. ‘Members of the neofascist Parti Populaire Francais? That I most certainly wouldn’t know, Inspector. I’m simply a typist. I never go to that garage. Why should I, when I know nothing of engines and am kept busy here?’
Leaving the Citroen where it was, they got into the van with Louis again at the wheel. ‘Old money, Hermann. For far too long, about 200 families have controlled our banks. While presently they will have German overseers, there will always be someone who watches shy; things for the family. Having married that sister of hers, Bolduc will have got his hands on his wife’s portion of the family’s money, since that is how it is in France, but Yvonne Roget realized immediately shy; that her boss wasn’t the only one on thin ice and that if a sacrifice was to be made, it would be him and no one else. She won’t just be contacting Gregoire, she’ll be disturbing the sleep of that pot-shoot even though the Gestapo’s listeners will hear her. She’ll also, bearing those same listeners in mind but avoiding them at all costs, be on her way to see that sister of hers who obviously must know only too well that her husband has a mistress.’
Louis certainly had an understanding of things. ‘Tolerated, eh, for the good of the family? Though in a hell of a rush, our Yvonne still took time out to brush that lovely auburn hair and do her lips and the rest before dashing off to throw a wrench into us if possible.’
‘After lightly dabbing herself behind the ears with the Empress Eugenie’s favourite, but is Bolduc a Royalist yearning for the days of even Napoleon III and his consort?’
Who had been banished to England in 1871, but the partnership had been up against those wanting the strong hand of royalty before, though there was something else Louis had better hear. ‘Three of those vans use the Porte de Versailles as a designated entrance and we both know what it’s close to because it’s also Oberfeldwebel Werner Dillmann’s beat.’
And the entrance used by the Tabac National. ‘Ah bon, but why bother to talk to the cat when you can talk to the tiger?’
An old saying from home, and also from Louis’s childhood summers at an uncle’s farm near Saarbrucken, but there was still more to come. ‘Yvonne left that boss of hers a note, Louis. Apparently the PPF are due another donation.’
‘Aren’t Rudy de Merode and the other gangs enough?’
‘Easy, mon vieux. Easy.’ But many of the big banks were funding the PPF, and always such donations were in cash to avoid a paper shy; trail. Vehemently anti-Democratic, anti-Communist, anti-the Allies, de Gaulle, the Masons and the Jews, PPFs were especially anti-Resistance now and had their spies everywhere.
‘And like a lot of the others, Hermann, they will have realized Herr Himmler’s determination to destroy the Abwehr and absorb it into the Sicherheitsdienst, and will have switched sides.’
Leaving the Abwehr, which had originally done so much for all such types, right out in the cold. So bad had things become, Abwehr-West had forbidden its German and French staff to have any dealings with the SD and SS, but it was all too clearly a battle the Abwehr were fast losing. ‘And that has to include Bolduc’s two overseers, Louis. Hauptmann Reinecke and Leutnant Heiss must be Abwehr-West and will have been with that bank since July of 1940.’
‘With lots of time to get to know and work with Bolduc. This investigation just gets deeper and deeper, doesn’t it?’
Unfortunately, there was something else Louis had better hear. ‘When he assigned us to this investigation, Boemelburg thought to tell me that the SD had just recruited a Selbstschutz from among the PPF. I know I should have told you, but …’
‘News like that would be too upsetting, a self-defence hit squad to do what the SD themselves don’t want to be associated with like taking care of outspoken detectives?’