‘For a Detektiv you ask a lot of questions.’
‘Here, have one of these and give us a light.’
‘Shit, they must have forgotten to drop off the matches. Now I’ll catch hell for not having demanded them.’
Since the Tabac National also made those, but fortunately the boy had matches of his own.
‘Why the muscle at that entrance to the city, Inspector?’
‘I was hoping Werner could tell me.’
‘All we know is that they’re looking for a gazo that’s hauling stuff for the schwarzer Markt. We don’t even know when they’ll lift the search. It could be days.’
‘And that’s not good, is it?’
‘People like us already have enough to worry about.’
‘Here, let me give you a little something to take the chill off.’
Opening the Citroen’s trunk, Kohler found the bottle and handed shy; it to Hartmann. ‘That’s the shotgun from the bank van that was robbed. Beautiful, isn’t it? Feel how light it is and well balanced, yet how solid is the forehand’s grip. Be careful. It’s still loaded.’
Two men had died, they not having used it, thought Hartmann. ‘We always get vans from that bank coming through. How much cash was taken?’
The things one learned. ‘Lots, but they were also hauling things for the schwarzer Markt.’
‘And people, too, like the other vans from that same bank?’
Ach, how lovely. ‘Maybe. That’s something else I wanted to ask your Oberfeldwebel.’
‘This is good,’ said Hartmann of the pear brandy.
‘Then have some more and another of these. My partner won’t mind. He’s French and he does what I tell him because he has to, but he’s cut himself rather badly. If you could lose that first-aid kit on your belt, would one of these five-thousand notes help you to get another?’
A five-thousand note, when two hundred was more than enough!
Listening to the sounds, distant now from the escort service and dance studios, St-Cyr paused in this last of corridors. He was, he knew, well above the avenue Beaucour, which, with its cul-de-sac, bordered the Salle Pleyel on the east. There were no immediate neighbours, no elevator next to the room, just a nearby back staircase that would have offered another route down to street level if needed. But beyond the room, there was something else: a short flight of stairs that would have taken her to the roofs. As a diver, she would have kept both in mind, for the roofs here would continue well along the avenue Beaucour.
Finding the Surete’s pass keys the early 1930s had given him as a chief inspector, he began to try them, conscious always that Concierge Figeard might indeed have thought to check, and when the lock gave, whispered, ‘Dieu merci,’ and softly let himself in, closing, and locking it behind himself.
A maid’s garret, une chambre de bonne, the room was so bare he had to wonder at her having lived here since that third week of August 1941. Seemingly alone on the makeshift 1920s counter of the opposite wall, the washbasin was but one of those badly chipped enamel flea-market things. So small was the cube of the grey national, one could fail to notice it. Slaked lime, sand and ground horse chestnuts, it was not only gritty but likely to burn and leave a rash. But a wash every day, no matter how cold the room.
There was no heat, of course. Well to his left, tidily against the wall and in a corner, was a single-burner electric hotplate, the frayed cord well-taped. Half a box of Viandox cubes* was with two tins of sardines and one of peas. A chipped porcelain pitcher served as water carrier and source. Plate, cup and saucer, bowl, spoon, fork and knife were with a small aluminium pot and a cast-iron frying pan.
The walls were neither white nor pale grey and absolutely blank. The armoire, one rescued no doubt from the cellars, revealed equally little: two skirts, three summer dresses, a few blouses, and a light sweater. Separated from these, the dress she had been given was of a very fine and soft, dark-blue wool that matched the shoes he still had in his coat pockets. White Chantilly lace fringed the accompanying slip, brassiere and underpants and must have come from just such a shop. Enchantement? he had to ask. Would Chantal and Muriel have seen to Madame Nicole Bordeaux’s order? Not personally, of course. One of their girls would have, though they would have gone over everything carefully, but why, of course, the very expensive and equally rare lingerie?
‘I’ll have to ask them and that, mademoiselle, is bound to take us even deeper, so maybe I had better not ask.’
The silk stockings, those rarest of things, had been very carefully smoothed and were on yet another hanger, the garter belt with them. Three plain pairs of repeatedly and beautifully mended shy; step-ins, another blouse and sweater were in a drawer with two pairs of worn-out tennis shoes, and another of walking shoes whose heels would definitely have to be replaced when money allowed. ‘But for a girl who has gone home once before, mademoiselle, there is as yet no evidence of that earlier trip. Such a spartan behaviour demands answers in itself.’
When he opened the small cardboard suitcase that was under the military cot from the Great War, he realized what she had done, for here there were three berets, one black, another crimson, the third a medium brown, also two very colourful shopping bags, both reversible but instantly giving the drab and functional. A selection of scarves that could be quickly switched was evident, also another dress, a pair of woollen slacks, shirt-blouse, warm sweater, even a spare toothbrush, step-ins, brassiere, flannelette pajamas, face cloth, towel and sanitary pads. She had put all that she would absolutely need here so that if driven to, she could quickly leave with the suitcase, and that, of course, had to mean that she would have laid out at least two routes of escape across those roofs. She had even chosen one of the Occupation’s suitcases so that if necessary she could leave it tucked in with others at a railway or bus terminal checkpoint and simply walk through with papers only. Even her jacket was reversible, and from the look of it and by hand-spanning both waist and slack-length, came the estimates: Height: 173 centimetres, weight: 50 kilos, though some of that would definitely have been lost due to the constant shortages.
‘Hair, a very light blonde, mademoiselle, but you should be more careful, since these days someone other than myself might take interest.’
Carefully coiling the strand, he tucked it away in his wallet. There were no snapshots, no mementos from home, no bottle even of black hair dye. ‘No past, no future, just the present, eh?’ he demanded, and returning the suitcase, looked carefully under the bed and found a little something else. But why hide it unless when helping with the rabbits and such, she had been forced to return the original every time and would need her own, especially if to escape?
She had had it made, and that could only have meant a block of wax, an impression, and a little help from someone else. ‘But now, of course, you have forced me to use and return it, but first I must have a further look here.’
Tidily arranged on the small table she used as a desk were her notes. It was indeed a dissertation on the Benedictines and their place in the medieval history of France, with an emphasis on the Cistercians. Everything had been carefully referenced. She must have been working on a history degree. Only frequent visits to the reading room of the Bibliotheque Nationale could have produced this. Diagrams gave the layouts of abbey after abbey, among them l’Abbaye de Vauclair but also l’Abbaye d’Orval to the east of the Ardennes, in the heart of the Gaume forest and all but on the frontier between Belgium and France. Torched in 1637, that one had been rebuilt in 1680, she had noted. Demolished in 1793, sold off as a quarry in 1797, it had been, again she had noted, rebuilt in 1926 and finally reopened in 1938 only to find itself all but in the path of the Blitzkrieg.